The Expressionist's Manifesto.

EAUSENOON for Fashion Envie 2016

Photo + Direction: The Expressionist.

The Warming Series (2013-2016) -- identity research photo project by Teff (the don/the expressionist). This project was designed to capture and document the journey and process of getting reacquainted with her home, Nigeria. The idea of The Warming Series, since its inception in 2013, quickly revealed how tasking the process would be. There were a number of hurdles that proved equally demanding, but none compared to burden attributed to the loss of her grandmothers. She lost both to illness. Neither saw nor had knowledge of whom she came to be, nor the matured sound of her voice, her laughter, her cry. 

The Warming Series sets out to examine how she sees herself in relation to her Home--what it was, and what it has transformed into in her absence, as well as how her grandmothers would see her, had they been alive upon her return. The project also serves to examine the concept of home--the creation and recreation of it--an aspect she believes will find resonance in children of (im)migrants like herself.

In the future, she hopes to extend this form of identity research to individuals who share narratives similar to hers--migrant children who left home and for circumstances beyond their control, did not return until mid-to-late adulthood.