(bright upbeat music) - As a queer Nigerian person, I grew up really struggling with these two identities, feeling like I couldn't be both LGBTQ and African.

Hearing things like it was un-African to be LGBT.

And I didn't feel like I could be a whole person.

And for me, dealing with those personal struggles eventually really drove me to photography because photography came a space where I could be free.

(air whooshing) (film cracking) I did a lot of work around LGBTQ African history.

And one of the things that I learned during that process is that colonization progressively erased and destroyed and created this narrative that it was un-African that black people were so close to the level of animals that were only capable of a natural heterosexual impulse to reproduce.

It's not that our culture is the problem.

It's that our culture has been transformed and distorted through the colonial process.

And so I'm working as much as possible to share aspects of history so that as we move forward in the 21st century we transform our culture to then create open spaces for LGBT people.

(bright upbeat music) Oh my God I love this picture of some much, I spent like a year just not doing photography cause I didn't think I was a good enough photographer and I did this picture.

I felt like I could see that there was some talent.

So I was like I'm never gonna take a picture as good as this one again, that was my whole thing.

So it was nice opening moment and inspired me to keep going.

(bright upbeat music) I photographed over 50 LGBTQ African immigrants in 10 countries across North America, Europe and the Caribbean, and that project was really based in my own personal experience.

When I went back to Nigeria, I had really traumatic experience where I really felt I couldn't be both LGBTQ and African, dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety coming out of that experience, I didn't really feel like I had a voice.

And for me, I wanted to know if first of all were there other LGBTQ African people.

That was the first question I wanted to know.

And then I wanted to see how they fuse these two identities together, because if I could see how they did it maybe I could get a little bit of an answer for how I can do it myself.

(bright upbeat music) - [Crowd] Justice for Micheal Brown.

Justice for Micheal Brown.

Justice for Micheal Brown.

Justice-- - I had been really struck by the murder of Michael Brown and how his body was left in the street for hours.

And then how that image was then plastered all over the media.

I was like, how can I now maybe craft something to respond to that, and re-imagine the black body as the space of magic in life.

(bright upbeat music) I came to this method of actually painting the models' bodies with fluorescent paints.

I'm an engineer by training, so I built my own flash that only transmit the ultraviolet light and then photographing the models under the ultraviolet light, with the painted patterns that I've done on their bodies to then eliminate their body in these patterns of the cosmos.

(bright upbeat music) - Been able to see the pictures, it allows you to think of yourself as bigger, as a whole universe.

And that's not really something that people are encouraged to do.

(bright upbeat music) - Honestly, it was really inspiring to be able to like take a step back and see the frames and see something like what it felt like the true has bits of myself kind of illuminated on the digital screen of camera.

(bright upbeat music) - You don't get to see black people experiencing pleasure as much as you do see them experiencing pain because of all of that like pain and hardship that we've been endured there's something so magical and beautiful about us.

I think during this shoot, it was like one of the first times that I really felt beautiful.

(bright upbeat music) - I think that's so powerful for black people to be able to see themselves as magical.

It's very healing.

It's been really great because even with all the trauma that started that journey, I feel like it's really just helped me to now resolve a lot of that, to actually feel like, you know what, I've it this far and I can move on, I can move forward.

(bright upbeat music)