In early 2013, when New York-born Oluwanisola “Sola” Olosunde started college, he was about to adopt a new look. After years of sporting classy sportswear by designers Stüssy and Supreme, Olosunde is looking for a more personalized look, subtly suited to job interviews and evenings with friends. But one day, while walking through an Urban Outfitter, Olosunda came across a copy of Jamel Shabazz’s explosive monograph, titled Time ago (2001).
Looking at the street portraits of Shabazz, shot in New York in the 80s, Olosunde discovers the cool style of the early days. The athleisure trend emerged during the 70s and 80s alongside sneaker culture and hip hop. But the sophistication of dancehall culture is everywhere in the Caribbean community of Flatbush, where Shabazz has toured extensively. While admiring Kangol or Clark vintage clothes, Olosunde discovers what he describes “a visual reference for how I wanted to dress”.
But Shabazz’s book isn’t the only one that will mark his life. A first-generation Nigerian-American, Olosunde sees Clinton Hill, the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, undergo rapid gentrification with the construction of Barclay’s Center. The family then moved to Far Rockaway, a barrier reef island located in the Atlantic Ocean, which time seems to have forgotten. This neighborhood, corresponding to the last stop on the A line of the subway, is too remote to interest developers, and therefore hasn’t changed much since the 1980s, when Shabazz took his photos.
Fascinated by the city’s ever-changing landscape, Olosunde wants to understand why things are the way they are. Buy an essay by Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of America’s Great Cities (1961), which reveals how “rationalist” planners such as Robert Moses systematically destroy non-white communities under the guise of “urban renewal”. “It helped me see New York in a new light”says Olosunde, who is currently a planner in the Queens borough.
The world at your fingertips
“Growing up, I hated taking pictures”, recalls Sola Olosunde. Her parents, eager to immortalize their life and that of their children and friends, preferred staged portraits to snapshots. “My parents took turns taking pictures of us. They told me: “Sit here, Sola, next to your mother. » “Now it’s your brother’s turn « , and my parents had five children. Photo ops lasted 30 minutes at Six Flags. I was really annoyed, but looking back on it, I totally understand why they were doing this and I thank them for it, because all we are left with are the memories. If we didn’t have pictures, we wouldn’t have anything tangible that reminds us of the past. »
Although Olosunde witnessed the explosion of digital technology and the rise of cell phones with built-in cameras as a young adult, he admired the permanence of photography on film. In the summer of 2017, he bought a $7 movie camera on Myrtle Avenue and immediately set to work, recording street culture to keep track of the city of his youth. In the same year, Olosunde also started making self-portraits out of sheer necessity. “My brother was taking lessons and I had no one to take a picture of me”he said. “I had to fend for myself. My dad had a tripod in the shed, I took it out one day and started taking pictures around my neighborhood. I didn’t want to bother anyone so I decided to do it myself. »
Olosunde gets on her bike and hits the streets, spotting scenic vistas that could frame her dress and give the image the panache of professional fashion photography. And as Olosunde does so, a passion for street self-portraiture develops within him, a passion that has permeated his work for the past six years. Traveling through the city he discovers places by pure chance, gets off his bike, mounts a tripod and transforms the city into an improvised photographic studio.
“Far Rockaway is a sparsely populated and underdeveloped neighborhood. Looks like New York once upon a time”dit Olosunda. “I have the privilege of living in New York, a very old city where some neighborhoods are very well preserved, such as Bed-Stuy or Fort Greene. Historic neighborhoods or places that haven’t really developed still look like they did when I was younger. »
“In New York, you see how expressive people are”
Combining personal style with knowledge of urban planning, Sola Olosunde’s self-portrait practice continues to evolve, with new techniques such as double exposure evoking the spirit of the album cover. Illmatic by Nas (1994). Olosunde takes these types of images with an old Yashica 120 camera from the 1950s that he bought on eBay. “It’s very easy to work with me, because I don’t impose a schedule”, he said. “What is not done today can be done tomorrow. »
Like artists like Samuel Fosso, Tseng Kwong Chi or Cindy Sherman, Olosunde is both photographer and subject, but unlike them he is neither a conceptual photographer nor a performer: his practice is rather somewhere between portraiture and fashion photography . A model himself, he has worked, albeit freelance, for Dapper Dan and Fila, whose designs reflect his sense of style.
“I think of style as a form of expression, and in New York you see how expressive people are”he said. “In cities like New York or Tokyo, where there’s a lot of public transportation, you tend to be more conscious of how you dress, because you’re always surrounded by people, so we care about how they look. In New York, we share a public space, so let’s think of a way to distinguish ourselves, to show who we are. So am I. »
