Hope Leye
'Untitled' - Photography, Creative Writing and Graphic Design
"A collage of photographs of the city against a text piece written in response to my memories and experiences of living in Manchester. I want to focus in our club culture in particular and some of the surrounding issues in relation to it. The first stage would be to capture images of the city and then write in response to them."
Philosopher Edward Said argues that power and knowledge are inseparable. In the past the Western world's claim to knowledge of 'the East' gave the West the power to name, and the power to exert control over it. Likewise in post-colonial discourse the structures of the Western world over the African nations that assert the superiority of the Western world in our own eyes stem from a subconsciously embedded claim to knowledge of them. An essential part of my art practice is asserting my experiences and the resulting knowledge as an act of reclaiming power, breaking preconceptions by challenging and disrupting what the audience may have accepted to be their knowledge. Much of my art practice is also fascinated by the complex social and religious power structures that still govern and oppress, these often patriarchal structures and binding psychological constructs of masculinity are observed, re-appropriated and played with in my work.
I present my life as a series of entwined and simultaneously scattered narratives. Sitting on a crossroads between post-colonial discourse and queer theory as a live debate embodied in much of my own life, and then often slipping over to introspective views of my sexual relationships with others; my art practice is often difficult to define. I hope that somewhere others are able to identify and find strength, comfort or understanding in my work, and if not it will continue to act as a cathartic outcry from myself. Beyond all this and perhaps most importantly my art practice is a celebration of my life and indeed the human experience, both the joys and sorrows, and even ultimately the silence, loneliness and oblivion of death that haunts us all. With the work created for this exhibition I aim to explore and focus on my time and experiences living in Manchester, the first city I lived in after leaving home, and the unique love-hate relationship I formed with this beautiful city, it's bright lights, and often grey skies.
My art practice is a series of self-portraits, through writing, photography, artefacts from my life and an eclectic collection of things I find value in. Whilst taking heavy influence and inspiration from the realms of photography, advertising, creative writing and a diverse range of musical cultures; I want to lay bare everything I have learnt and am learning through my own experiential knowledge as a British Nigerian man of Orthodox Afro-spiritual Christian heritage and homophobic background.
- Examples of previous work.