J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere understood fashion as a personal display of independence.

J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere: Sartorial Moments and the Nearness of Yesterday is the second in MoAD’s Curator’s Choice Series. Curated by Olabisi Silva, Director of the Contemporary Centre for Art, Lagos, Sartorial Moments portrays a people defining their place in history. J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere understood fashion as a personal display of independence, and in the 50 photographs included in this exhibition, dating from 1955 to 2008, he captures traditional Nigerian dress and hairstyles alongside popular Western-style adaptations.

Hair, as one of the main identifiers of time and place, became an especially important focus for the artist as he documented the changing body politic of his young nation. In depicting the complexities of a new and free post-colonial Nigerian society, Ojeikere reveals the degree of influence that the West—particularly the United Kingdom and the United States—has had on the youth of Lagos as they continually negotiate between old and new, colonialism and post-colonialism.