Hogon Presence

The Hogon series are an exploration to the manner in which contemporary photography, fashion and visual history use cultural appropriation as a style; Taking without permission, the cultural artefacts, intellectual property, or cultural expressions, of another cultures. This striking casual dissociation of history goes as a paradox hand in hand with the daily demonization of many minorities living in the western world.

Taking this unnatural phenomenon of appropriation and cultural neo-colonization, the series use characters and metaphors that represent the separation and alienation of minorities and appropriators. Covering the faces of the people portrayed, I define the syndromes of subjection, violence, individualism, alienation and objectification that affect modern society. The veil communicate a sartorial disassociation with our communities and a conflict between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present in our collective existence.

I’m also covering faces with fabrics as a tribute to my African Ancestors, rediscovering textile masks as an animistic mediator between the living and the supernatural world.