Stephen Tayo — What Comes to Mind When You See the Garments?

Tayo shot the entire series in black and white, and the subtraction is the argument: color has been his signature since he started photographing Lagos street style, and giving it up leaves nothing in the frame but one garment. The sutana, also called aso-funfun, is the flowing white robe worn by followers of the Aladura movement, a Yoruba Pentecostal faith built on divine healing and Yoruba creation stories. He shot devotees across Lagos, Ibadan, Ekiti and into Benin Republic. The show opened August 1 at Alára and runs to September 20; it is his first solo presentation with FF Projects and the fourth in Faridah Folawiyo's year-long residency there. He studied philosophy at Unilag, and it shows in a title that is a question rather than a caption. The V&A, Palais de Tokyo and the Brooklyn Museum all arrived early on him, and the pictures have not softened for any of them.