If You Were in My Sneakers: Migration Stories in the Studio Photography of Dakar based Omar Victor Diop

Abstract

If one of the defining images of the present is the unregulated migration of individuals and families across the Mediterranean in small boats, what does migration look like from the perspective of those based of the African continent? In this essay, I argue that Dakar-based photographer Omar Victor Diop focuses his lens on the dignity of migrants, rather than the crisis of migration. In Project Diaspora: Self-Portraits 2014, he reframes contemporary migration in a global historical context to show the contradictions of these movements across oceanic spaces. In Diaspora, Diop swaps out props for football paraphernalia to point to contradictions: so-called migration success stories are rife with experiences of racism and exclusion, and important black historical figures can be omitted from historical accounts.