For many Queer Africans, the dream is to be able to relocate to a first world country where the rights of LGBT people are upheld by law and queerness is more mainstream and be finally allowed to explore their lives as queer people. But the reality is, because of endemic racism, queer Africans who move to first world countries are often ostracised and discriminated against in public spaces and eventually are forced to seek out predominantly African communities. Even in African dominated spaces, queer people are ostracised and queerness is violently fought against, forcing many queer Africans to return to the closet and present a semblance of heterosexuality. This is what inspired Nigerian-American Queer photographer Mikael Owunna to start a series, photographing queer people of African descent across the continent.

“I felt that my existence was an inherent contradiction because of my sexuality. I experienced considerable homophobia in African spaces and was told that being gay was ‘un-African’—a disease from the West and white people,” he writes. “Hearing one-sided messages like that from a young age is incredibly damaging to one’s sense of self. Everyone should have the right to be who they are, without hiding key parts of themselves.”

Owunna has spent the first of his project documenting the lives of Queer Africans in America, and he is currently in Europe extending his project.

See more here.

Editor