Harley Weir's Photos of Senegal

 

The day after our Orientalism discussion, I was flipping through Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry magazine, and saw these photos of Dakar, Senegal by Harley Weir in a new light. After the grim examples of Western art in the class period, it kind of relieved me. Here’s a talented, young, Western artist who is capable of documenting a non-Western country with respect and nuance.

While I don’t really have any way of knowing how true to life these photos are, I don’t see the cliches of Orientalism encountered in other Western art. There’s respect and admiration here that I don’t know how to quantify with analysis, but I think I can feel its presence.

In addition to being great portraits, the thing that immediately sticks out to me is the Western iconography in these lives. In the first photo, the model’s face is out of frame and a Calvin Klein t-shirt takes up most of the space. And in the third photo, an American car frames its driver in the scene. This reminds me of the growing Western presence in Ayemenem throughout The God of Small Things. I suppose Western influence has become an inescapable part of the lives of the Senegalese men in the photos. And Weir doesn’t ignore that in an attempt to show Westerners what they expect to see of Africa.

And little details like the cross hanging from the car, the drawing on the man’s stomach, and the outfits give actual insight into the model’s personalities. They are not vague foreign stereotypes. They are people.

I think we’re living in a creative renaissance and people like Harley Weir prove it with work like this.