#Mikael Owunna

[queerafricans]

#botswana #south africa #angola #lesotho #mozambique #seychelles #nigeria #kenya #cameroon #bisi alimi #Kasha Nabagesera #uganda #Mikael Owunna #Richard Akuson #Zanele Muholi #Frank Mugisha #Shrouk El-Attar #egypt #Unoma Azuah #OluTimehin Kukoyi

[angelajennings]

Transcendental Arrangements, Miller Institute of Contemporary Art, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Curated by Elizabeth Chodos, July 28th-Sept 8th.

With:  Sue Abramson, A.W. Allison, Elijah Burgher, Julia Haft-Candell, Jovencio de la Paz, Joshua Challen Ice, Ulric Joseph, Eli Kessler, Jessica Labatte, Deanna Mance, Brent Nakamoto, Mikael Owunna, Paula Wilson

Image: Water Weeps in a Vail, 2018, latex house paint, acrylic, paper, semi precious beads, sequins, sand, yarn, wire thread, mirror, lace on found quilt, 64" x 56"

[1mikel2]

30/05/2023

¡Buenos días!

«Estás roto, muy roto, y lo lamento, pero no se trata de ello, sino de lo que haces con eso.

Porque he visto quienes lo han vuelto música, poesía, literatura; y déjame decirte, que algunas cosas nacen y se hacen con el alma hecha trocitos. Así que ¡vamos! NO te despidas de la vida; toma tu dolor y conviértelo en arte

👇Mikael Chukwuma Owunna, a queer Nigerian-Swedish artist raised in Pittsburgh.

[indiespacesite]

Black Bodies Painted and Photographed Like the Cosmos by Mikael Owunna

Artist Mikael Owunna's breathtaking photos feature bodies that are seemingly made of stars – created by hand-painting people with fluorescent paints, and then photographing them in total darkness.

#Art

[scottnandrew]

In Dialogue featuring Alisha Wormsley and Mikael Owunna

Please join Studio Arts for a screening event in the Frick Fine Arts Building Auditorium, featuring Obi Mbu (The Primordial House) by Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd & select works by Alisha Wormsley. As part of the In Dialogue series mission, a conversation with the artists will follow the screening. The screening will take place on March 16 from 7:30-9:00pm with a reception prior to the screening starting at 7:30pm. This event will take place in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125 

[sheltiechicago]

Oku na MMiri (Fire and Water), 2018, from the series Infinite Essence

In Some Far-off Place, Many Light Years in Space, I’ll Wait for You: Mikael Owunna

Photographs that aim to reflect the divine nature of Blackness.

Go Sa (Sister of the Dance), 2019, from the series Infinite Essence

Nommo Die and Nommo Titiyane, 2019 from the series Infinite Essence

Lebe and His Articulations, 2019 from the series Infinite Essence

#mikael owumma #artist #photographer #blackness #photographs #art #infinite essence

[sallymolay]

Queer, Limitless Africans

The Guardian writes:

Homosexuality is illegal in more than 30 African countries and punishable by death in four. There is also the widespread belief that homosexuality is ‘un-African’. In his new book Limitless Africans, Nigerian photographer Mikael Owunna documents stories of LGBTQ immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers.

The photos above depict (from the top):

Brian, Montreal, Canada I am Rwandan by my parents, but I grew up in Tanzania, Niger, Kenya, Benin and the Central African Republic. I answer to him and her and I identify as queer. When I decided to embrace my LGBTQ identity, I pushed away my African identity. But I had already tried to push away my LGBTQ identity. It was complete denial. And then one day I thought to myself why not try embracing both identities, just for the sake of trying. I never felt so complete and comfortable in my skin.

Wiilo, Arlington, VA, US Wiilo in Somali means ‘girl who dresses like boy’ … It’s something that comforted me when I was discovering my queerness and helped me to overcome the shame and the feeling of being pushed away from my Somali culture. Growing up, any deviation from the norm was stamped down. This has to do with living in a refugee community surrounded by whiteness, when holding on to your culture means defining it in very limiting ways.

Aru, Brussels, Belgium My name is Aurélie. I am Congolese, Bandundu. I prefer to go by the pronouns of they and them. I am comfortable with identifying as queer or lesbian. People fear what they do not understand. And when someone doesn’t understand what it is to truly be themselves and love who they are, then I’m really not surprised that there is such resistance to having an open mind and understanding their history. To put Africans in a box of heteronormative western structures is to really deny their true history.

Yahya, Philadelphia, PA, US I am half-Moroccan and half-American, born in Casablanca. I identify as a second generation radical queer, pansexual, and the gender identity that feels comfortable is ‘boi’. I aspire towards a queered masculinity, with tenderness and self-awareness. I like they and them pronouns. Race and ethnicity are complicated in Morocco. Many Moroccans feel both Arab and African, but Arab comes first, Moroccan comes before both of those, and Muslim comes before everything else. There is a rich and diverse history of non-binary gender expression in African cultures.

Lahya, Berlin, Germany I’m originally from Namibia and now located in Berlin. My pronoun is she and I’m a queer, cis-femme person with polyamorous relationships and I’m pan. For me, as a disabled black and body non-conforming person, style is empowerment. I’m very influenced by my African heritage: I like big earrings, but also colours and I like to show my body as it is and to bring it out in the best way I can show it. As a black intersectional person, I always have to give myself a bit more love than other people in the world give me.

Jihan, Brussels, Belgium I was born in France to Algerian parents. I’m a trans dude. My societal gender is masculine, but my psychic reality is two-spirit. I feel very strongly both female and male energies. I had a period of attraction to and aversion from the African community I’m originally from; all the way to a complete rejection. It’s a huge internal struggle, as we are educated in contradictions, tradition and modernity. In North African cultures there is honour and loyalty or guilt and shame. It’s a conditioning that is very difficult to escape.

Read the whole story!

#Mikael Owunna #african #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbt african #queer african

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

“Infinite Essence” by Mikael Owunna

#Infinite Essence #Mikael Owunna #Owunna #art #Art at PIT #PIT #Pittsburgh

[leftofblack]

Left of Black S11 · E14 | Exploring Black Cosmologies Through the Art of Mikael Owunna    

Black bodies have long been associated with death and the site for racial trauma induced by systemic oppression. But how can we unfetter our imagination on how we view the Black body, which ultimately impacts how we all view ourselves? Duke alumnus Mikael Owunna, a queer Nigerian-Swedish American multimedia artist and engineer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania joins Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal. Mr. Owunna will have his first museum installation at the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh located at 409 West Martin Street, Raleigh, NC from February 5 to August 15, 2021.

#Mikael Owunna #Mark Anthony Neal #Left Of Black #CAMRaleigh

[we-players]

We love this incredible work by Mikael Owunna. Check out the link for more of these beautiful photos! 

https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/03/03/696969592/transforming-the-pain-of-black-lives-lost-into-portraits-of-magic-embodied

#Mikael Owunna #Photography

[mademoiselleclipon]

Mikael Owunna

#mikael owunna

[gwydionmisha]

#Mikael Owunna

[jomiddlemarch]

This is from March 3, 2019 but felt appropriate on MLK Jr Day. The images are glorious-- go check it out!

#martin luther king jr day #mikael owunna #photography #representation matters

[kevindrakewriter]

#photography #art and design #culture #sexuality #The Guardian #Mikael Owunna #lgbtq+ #African Continental Culture

[amycvdh]

Infinite Essence: “Kinya” (2017) and Infinite Essence: “Emem” (2018) by Mikael Owunna (via "Black Bodies Painted and Photographed Like the Cosmos" by Mikael Owunna" this is colossal)

#Mikael Owunna #cosmos #black woman #universe #beauty

[electronicgallery]

^Sam, 2018

^DeShaun, 2017

^James, 2018

^Sam, 2018

^Uche, 2019

^Emem, 2018

^Kinya, 2017

^Emem, 2018

^Sam, 2018

Owunna prints the final images on aluminum, a nod to the West African metallurgy tradition and a tie between the models and their ancestors. The subjects see themselves reflected in the piece, fostering a transgenerational conversation. He also chose metal because though it appears strong, it's fragile and easily bent — a tribute to the lives of black children who have been killed by law enforcement, like Tamir Rice, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Trayvon Martin and Antwon Rose Jr.

^Uche, 2019

^Sam, 2018

#mikael owunna #art #photography #npr