#onomollywood

Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempé

From the series [re-]Mixing Hollywood, or ONOMOllywood

The project was conceived when hotel group Onomo International invited Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempé to create a series of photos using the hotel as a backdrop. Diop sees hotels as “a crossroads in which cultures and origins from around the world co-exist and merge in a permanent cycle of reinventions and reinterpretations.” Tempé was always fascinated by hotels because “for the traveler, they are ephemeral places, where adventures begin or end, where journeys unfold.”

As Diop explains, they approached it through cinema because it is “probably the form of art that is the most universal, as it transcends all barriers, be they geographic, cultural, or racial. Great movies feature iconic scenes that have tremendously influenced pop cultures of very different societies. A great movie becomes a moment that is lived across the globe by people who have very little in common, but who relate to extraordinary stories that allow them to dream.” The stunning images give an idea of what cinema's most iconic moments would look like if they were conceived and shot in Africa, offering a vision of how popular global culture translates to the local.

Diop is a self-taught photographer who gave up a career in corporate communications after receiving international recognition for his first conceptual project, the futuristic "Fashion 2112." His body of work stretches from conceptual fine art projects to fashion photography and staged portraits, through a playful interpretation of contemporary social phenomena, such as the relationship between consumption habits and the notions of identity.

Antoine Tempé is a French-American photographer, specialized in documenting African contemporary cultural scenes through fine art photography, portraiture and photojournalism.

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A photo exhibition by Antoine Tempé & Omar Victor Diop

  Co-authors, Senegalese Omar Victor Diop and French-American Antoine Tempé are both photographers based in Dakar, Sénégal. They were invited by the hotel group ONOMO International to create a series of photographs set in the group’s hotels. Their series comprises twenty images inspired by iconic moments of great American and international movies, with a cast, fashion, and styling, featuring a representative sample of the cultural scenes in Dakar and Abidjan, where these images were shot.

The exhibition will be on view at hotel ONOMO Dakar Airport until May 12, 2014.

1. "Blow Up," Dakar, 2013

2. "Breakfast at ONOMO's," Dakar, 2013

3. "Chicago: Jailhouse Tango," Dakar, 2013

4. "American Beauty," Abidjan, 2013

5. "Psycho," Abidjan, 2013

6. "Thelma & Louise," Abidjan, 2013

7. "Frida," Abidjan, 2013

8. "The Matrix," Dakar, 2013

ONOMOllywood exhibition by Antoine Tempe & Omar Victor Diop