Medina Dugger Portraits Colorful Nigerian Hair Culture

By
Ava K
-
Image by @medinadugger / Instagram

With her photo series titled Chroma, Lagos-based photographer Medina Dugger shows the diverse beauty of colorful Nigerian hair culture. She was inspired by J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, a legendary African photographer who documented Nigerian women’s hairstyles for over 5 decades.

Dugger intentionally uses bright colors to contrast ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s black and white work. See some of her works below and visit her Instagram for more.

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Chroma: An Ode to J.D. Okhai Ojeikere is up now throughout the town of #Daoulas #France Chroma is an on-going series which celebrates women’s hairstyles in Nigeria through a fanciful, contemporary lens. The images are inspired by hair color trends in Lagos and by the late Nigerian photographer J.D. Ojeikere, who photographed over a thousand different designs in his lifetime. African hair braiding methods date back thousands of years. The methods and variations have been influenced by social/cultural patterns, historical events and globalization. Hairdos range from being purely decorative to conveying deeper, more symbolic understandings, revealing social status, age and tribal/family traditions. Ojeikere photographed the return to traditional hair design after Nigeria regained its independence from the British. Wigs and hair straightening had become more popular during #colonialrule as Nigerian women began to conform to the western standard of beauty. An estimated 60,000 people will view this exhibition in Daoulas, installed through November 2018. #nigerianhairstyles #nigerianphotography #africanart #africanphotography #africanhairbraiding #jdokhaiojeikere #ojeikere #outdoorexhibition #gele #lagos #nigeria #hairculture held by/in collaboration with @cheminsdupatrimoine @mairiededaoulas @galerie_magnin_a

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Chromatin on @artafrica_mag #Chromatin is an #animated #gif project in collaboration with @francoisbeaurain It is a variation on Medina Dugger’s #Chroma photo project which celebrates women’s hair styles in #Nigeria . Chroma finds its inspiration in hair colour trends in #Lagos and by the late Nigerian photographer J.D. Okhai #Ojeikere. Chromatin features #geometrical and #fractal constructions made from Nigerian hair designs which are geometrical and fractal constructs in-and-of themselves. The gifs offer deeper insight into the geometry behind African hairstyles, highlighting the importance of this practice specific to Africa and the diaspora. Recent scientific research has shown that fractals used to be at the heart of African design and art. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, African societies developed recursive patterns (with smaller parts mirroring larger parts), which informed the layout of African villages, hairdos and patterns in African art. These fractals can be found from ancient Egypt to Sub-Saharan Africa at large, but were completely ignored by the West, which conceptualized fractals much later. The fact that Europeans were unable to understand the subtleties of fractals, underscores a limiting, ethnocentric perspective which undoubtedly contributed to their assessment of African art and societies as primitive…Braiding is one of the rare contemporary cultural practice where fractals can still be found in Africa. African hair designs are among the last remaining remnants of an ancient African cultural pillar that has been almost completely annihilated by centuries of colonization and cultural domination… In biology, chromatin designates the macromolecule in which DNA is packed and it is known to adopt complex and repetitive geometry.

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