Ohemaa Dixon

Ohemaa Dixon uses photography as a form of meditation: on the world that surrounds her, on the status of media, on the predatory nature of touristic imagery, on her personal traumas, on issues of representation, and on whatever she pauses on and catch her attention. The images she constructs are all conceived around a branching of thoughts and analysis that goes on to inform the final images – or exhibition, or book – and are always layered images with a purpose, that encourage the viewer to ask questions. Ultimately her work, she explains, is about inspiring “intense empathy” and, quoting James Baldwin, “ to make the world a more human dwelling place.” Here’s our Q&A.How did you become interested in photography?I grew up with a photographer in the family so that automatically introduced me to photography. It formally introduced the idea of documenting moments as catalogs. However, I think what more so made me interested were images and media. Media is one of the most influential languages that we have universally. The intensity and rate at which images, moving and still, are thrown at us and proliferated is massive. Now bring that back to how media informs, as a young black girl, I was always aware of how little I saw my narratives coming from my perspectives shown– in mass media and fine art media. I loved going to art galleries as a kid in DC, but I also quickly noticed that voices like mine were not the norm or integrated like the world I saw around me, rather in these spaces there were a couple of black artists’ names that I could find here and there. I also noticed from institution to institution these names were repeated, especially in photography. This all brought me to be formally interested in wanting to be a part of the world of photography as my medium in art.Why did you choose this medium?Quite frankly, I’ve always been expressive. I remember at an early age I was ruled out of painting and drawing from my art teachers so I had always ruled art out for me. But. I was dying for a way to express myself and when I picked up a camera in high school for the first time and began coordinating shoots with my ideas, they became entire compositions. Almost like I was painting with my mind and the camera and even post-production as my paintbrushes. I’m fascinated specifically with photography as its ability to be a reflection of the world around us but also become like painting, as we edit with modern technology, and transform into…

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Source: vogue.it