by TERI WEST
On Valentine’s Day, senior Olasubomi Adesoye released his first photo in a series highlighting black women at the University of Maryland. He uploaded a photo of Baltimore-bred student Logan Tyler Nelson posing before a colorful Route 1 mural on his Instagram account. “I am proud to identify as Black because I stand on the backs of countless trailblazers that aren’t afraid to go against the grain and who know that with no struggle, there is no strength,” Nelson wrote in a short personal statement alongside the photo.
He added the hashtag #UMDMelanin, posted and then watched the likes roll in.
Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, he is studies accounting and international business at Maryland. Adesoye additionally pursues photography, branding his photos as O.A. Photography.
Every day for the rest of the month, Adesoye released one #UMDMelanin portrait of a black woman at an iconic campus location, accompanied by a short description written by the model herself. On Feb. 29, he released group portraits. He worked alongside creative directors Cheyenne Fogg and Chioma Agbaraji and his public relations director Rae-Ann Steele.
I spoke to him about his inspiration, process, and goals for the project.
Plex: So, UMD Melanin. Or do you prefer it with the hashtag?
Yeah, the official name is #UMDMelanin. The original original name was 14 Days of Melanin, which turned out to be actually 15 days…but the hashtag kinda took a life of its own before the whole series dropped. It turned around and renamed itself without me even having to say it.
Plex: What inspired the project originally?
It was Black History Month. I’ve always wanted to do a series, something to celebrate that. Especially with everything that’s going on with [fraternities and controversies over racism]. I’m in a fraternity. To see the fraternities have such a bad name based off of everything that’s going on, the email threads that have been going around or the stereotypes. It looks bad. And I didn’t like that and I didn’t like where this was going. And especially the one that really got to me was the one where the guy said all African American girls are easier on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The way it kind of feels like African Americans here at College Park are kind of just pushed to the side where it’s like, “Oh okay, you’re here…okay.” You know that’s kind of how it is. I need something that says, “We’re here, we’re gonna be here, we’re always going to be here.”
We’re not just a small community. Like, we’re really here and there’s a story behind each person. And I chose girls, because I feel like males kinda get all the attention or the praise or anything like that, and I wanted it to be more meaningful with females where it’s like, okay, these are not just African Americans but these are females.
Plex: What was your creative process, from finding the students to deciding to release one per day?
Every day, somebody comes up to me like, “How come I wasn’t chosen?” Every day without fail since this series started! But so this is literally what happened. I walked into Stamp and literally just chose out of random 14 girls! Which ended up being 17. Seventeen girls! I walked into Stamp for 14, ended up choosing 17, and I just chose out of random.
I didn’t want it to be the same girl or the typical image of what an African American girl looked like. You have the non-standard sizes or the different hair styles, different hair colors, different hair textures, have somebody who has dreads, have somebody that has straight hair, somebody that has the bush, somebody that has curly hair, short hair, you know, somebody who’s skinny, you know, all of that! I feel like sometimes people are losing sight of that because they’re like, “Oh these people are getting all the attention,” and I’m like, “That’s not the point.”
Your stories and your backgrounds might be different, but in the end, we’re still looked at the same. Like I’m Nigerian, you know. When I fill out a form, there’s no space for Nigerian — it’s just black or African American. I’m looked at as black or African American. That’s kinda what I wanted the point to be.
I’ve seen a lot of good reviews from those who’ve seen it. I’m having a gallery showing at the Pan-African Conference so right now I’m in the process of trying to get funding for getting them printed out.
Plex: And will they have captions too?
Yeah, so with the captions…you know how photography has like a title or like a word? I didn’t want it to be day one or anything like that so each title for each of the individual girls’ photos is that whole caption that I posted on my Instagram.
And it’s long! It’s gonna be long, but that’s what I want. I don’t want those photos to go anywhere without those captions.
Plex: I know the hashtag kind of took off on its own on the Internet. What have responses been like so far for you?
It’s been nothing short of amazing. I try to kind of distance myself from the whole series because I keep saying I don’t want it to be about me.
At the end of the day I took the pictures. Yeah, I did this and that, but I want it to be kind of really how the girls are feeling their story, what everybody else is feeling. You know what I mean? Sometimes I go on Twitter or Instagram and click the hashtag and see what people are saying, and it’s touching my heart and my soul to know that people are feeling that a bunch of pictures that I took are making them more proud of who they are or more comfortable in their own skin.
I took pictures for them and a lot of the things they were saying were “this is awkward” or “this doesn’t look good.” It’s like, just wait! I promise you it looks good, you look fine, you’re a beautiful person, it’s okay. And then it wasn’t until they started receiving the feedback from everybody else that it was like, wow, you know, this is actually true. I’m not saying they felt like they were ugly, but they weren’t comfortable in their own skin and then to see them celebrated in such a manner creates that sense of proudness in them.
Plex: How do you see art as a constructive medium for social change?
We all play a role individually as a little person to kind of keep the world movin’. So when it comes down to art I feel like that’s my role. I’m this photographer and I have this talent, you know, people refer to it as a talent, and I’m like if that’s my role to play, if that’s how to give back in the world — capturing moments through images and telling a story through an image — and that’s my role, then yeah, my role can create social change through my form of art. Just capturing that level of emotion on somebody’s face, and that just sparks some kind of change. All I need is the right person to read their story and I’ll have done my part. Change somebody’s thinking. End racism one word at a time, one picture at a time.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. All photos courtesy Olasubomi Adesoye. His work can be found at his website or his Instagram @oaphotography1.
Teri West writes for Plex’s Voices section. She studies sociology with a focus on stratification at the University of Maryland, and is from Silver Spring, Maryland.
