With the publication of his first monograph, “Cross Looks (Damiani),” the Swiss-Guinean photographer has combined five significant works that have been created in Guinea, Benin, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tahiti over the last decade.
In 2011, Namsa Leuba traveled to Concari, Guinea, her mother’s birthplace, to study Ya Kala Ben (Guinean for “squint”), her first long-term photo project related to “Representation of African Identity in the West.” A Guinean-Swiss born and raised in the West, Leuba is not “or,” but both at the same time. Standing outdoors and not amid each other’s culture has given him a whole new perspective. That has shaped his photography practice for the last ten years.
“My Swiss origin gave me an aesthetic sensibility for photography. And my African heritage and ancestry gave me a spiritual form for my work,” Leuba told Dazed. “Depending on where we are in the world, we can have different perceptions. We can say more than a thousand words with photography.
This is the perfect environment for me. You know, my photos are not reality, but expressions of my imagination. “
Freed from the constructions of rational thought, Leuba moves gracefully between the finite spaces of fiction. And fact and creates fantastical photographs that combine elements of documentary, fashion and show with remarkable aplomb. With the publication of his first monograph Cross Looks (Damiani) and his first solo exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. Leuba brings together five critical personal works that have been created in Guinea, Benin, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tahiti over the past. Ten years. And extracts from commercial and editorial works.
With each project, Leuba demonstrates a remarkable ability to innovate, synthesize, and articulate in a new visual language that no project looks exactly like the other. This adaptability is at the heart of Leuba’s summary of ambiguity, very much attuned to the flexibility of nature itself.
Our desire to name and name is a cultural construct that constantly changes depending on the speaker’s point of view.
Nothing is set up for Levba; it flows like water, blending and blending effortlessly in a kaleidoscopic explosion of shapes, colors, textures, and iconography. In his hands, the camera becomes an alchemical tool that destroys the language of photography and restores stimulating effects. With each work, Leuba effortlessly shatters the assumptions that have been made over the years of production, dissemination, and preservation of the white heterosexual male view.