In March 1998, I was in Syracuse, New York, for the month, creating some new work. I had no plans to take this photo – the project was not self-portraits – but that’s one of the beauties of photography: you can go somewhere with specific ideas and then create something else.
I was walking along the street when I saw a chaise longue in a shop. It just called to me. I loved the simplicity of its design and its colour, white, which I knew would contrast well against my black skin. So I bought it! There is a long history of women reclining on chaises longues in paintings: one of my favourites is Olympia, by Édouard Manet. I was also inspired by the work of the early 20th century US photographer EJ Bellocq, who took images of female sex workers, some on a chaise longue.
It is not necessarily an object associated with the male body. I wanted to place my Black queer body within the history of the chaise longue, but also explore how I could move away from that. Usually people will only look at Black queer work through a socio-cultural lens but, if you really interrogate it, you’ll find it fits within a larger history.
I was working in another photographer’s studio and pulled in the chaise longue. I bought the heels in Syracuse but the gloves, collar, fishnets and mask are mine – they’re all objects associated with S&M and kink play. My work is based on the experiential; for me, S&M and kink can be very intimate and tender. There are lots of ideas around sexual practices that are still taboo. In the UK, I still don’t see many images of Black people who are into S&M and kink in mainstream culture, or in public spaces such as art exhibitions.
I set my camera up on a timer. I was playing music by Marc and the Mambas, which set the energy. There were lots of outtakes, but there was something that just made this image work. It distills all the things that I was thinking about: pleasure and eroticism, the Black queer body, and masculinity. A lot of my work aims to bring a sense of intimacy or gentleness to the Black queer body.
There’s something about how I look back at the viewer. There’s almost a defiance, but not a harsh one. I’m looking back at you and saying: “I know you’re looking at my body.” My body is how I explore all kinds of ideas. I’m articulating my version of a Black British experience. There is a lot of texture, too: from the leather to the lace, to the heels, to the mask, to the hairs on my chest. It’s a very playful image.
I love photography from the 19th and early 20th centuries. I remember going to an exhibition of Ansel Adams’ work at the National Maritime Museum in London a decade ago and standing in front of one of his photos for half an hour because of the richness of the print. That’s why I love black and white. There is a richness to its tonality, and a timeless quality too. Colour, for me, is too distracting.
I’m also trying to convey a way of radically rethinking how we talk about Blackness and queerness by using the process of developing prints as a metaphor. If you think about identities as being like the chemicals I work with, they’re flowing, liquid, sensuous and porous. I want to create a conversation that moves away from the idea of identities being fixed. Every time I look at the image, it just makes me smile. I’m playing around with my identity – and doing it publicly.
Ajamu: The Patron Saint of Darkrooms is at Autograph, London, until 2 September. His work is also in (Un)Defining Queer at The Whitworth, Manchester, until 3 December.
Ajamu’s CV
Born: Huddersfield, 1963.
Trained: “Mainly self-taught. Studied photography, printing and design at Kitson College in Leeds (now Leeds College of Technology) for one term, but dropped out.”
Influences: “Tessa Boffin, Pierre Molinier, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Del LaGrace Volcano.”
High point: “One of my highlights would be my Black Bodyscapes exhibition in Huddersfield in 1994. That was the first time I’d pulled together a body of work”
Low point: “Section 28 [introduced in 1988, which banned local authorities from the “promotion of homosexuality”]. It was this overarching ghost over what kind of work was funded.”
Top tip: “Do not be afraid of those ideas in your head. Push the limits of your own practice. Understand the history that your work is part of, then recognise your point of departure and how those two things sit together, if they can.”
