Kristin-Lee Moolman & Ib Kamara

Kristin-Lee Moolman (South Africa, born 1987)

Kristin-Lee Moolman is a South African artist working primarily with photography and film. Her work, exploring themes like segregation and sexuality (without being overtly political), has often been described as ‘capturing the idea of a New Africa’, creating imagery that constitutes a stark departure from tradition and the conservative attitudes in the region. ‘I’m not making work that’s gonna change our political system or contest anything’, Moolman told Kareem Reid (‘How London is fuelling an African youthquake. Photographer and stylist duo Kristin-Lee Moolman and Ib Kamara capture the young Africans using the internet to channel London’s club and fashion scenes in their own ways’, DAZED, 1 July 2016), ‘It’s more a celebration of people and a utopian approach to the future’.

The fact that Moolman often returns to the concept of utopia can probably be explained by her background, being born into a White Afrikaans family in the final years of Apartheid. Moolman’s childhood, growing up in a ‘backwards Afrikaans town’, during the political transition, with its turmoil, between the old Apartheid South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s new South Africa, has had a profound and long-lasting impact on the narrative of her work, which is fuelled by the drive to create a utopian vision for the future, or, as Moolman put it in an interview from 2020, ’I think many artists’ formative years influence their work hugely, because regardless of where we grow up, our surroundings and experiences shape how we perceive our world and, almost by default, what we create in the future.’

Her work (which has gained international recognition) thus explores the ever-changing social and political landscape of Africa through portraits (often set against surreal, bleached-out landscapes) marked by contrasting realities - promoting powerful new identities that provide counter-narratives to current stereotyped, idealised imagery.

‘I felt so much guilt by association for what my people did to other people,’ Moolman told Rebecca Cairns in an interview (‘Fashion photographer Kristin-Lee Moolman wants to showcase the real South Africa’, CNN, 19 May 2021), before continuing, ‘For a long time, I wanted to get away from being Afrikaans, being White, being South African.’ Cairns writes:

Part of Moolman’s struggle with her nationality was a product of what she says was a predominantly negative portrayal of South Africa in the media. The prevalence of stories about poverty, violence and lack of education in South Africa struck a nerve for Moolman – while she acknowledges these problems exist, she is frustrated that so much of her country’s ‘creativity and joy’ is overlooked. ‘There’s this strength of character that people don’t show,’ she said, a key part of the counter-narrative her work tries to highlight. Staring directly into the camera, Moolman’s diverse subjects are powerful and sculptural against a dreamy, washed-out pastel landscape. This direct gaze helps to neutralise the ‘predatory voyeurism’ inherent in photography, she said. In recent years, Moolman says she is focused more on women and showcasing diversity. One of the trigger moments for this focus was Moolman’s 2019 shoot with Rihanna, for the superstar’s Fenty line. ‘Rihanna was one of the first ones (shoots) where I realised, you know what? Women are powerful.’ ‘I have a tremendous amount of respect for Rihanna, because of her voice in terms of diversity, women, and sexuality. I really like her ideology and her view on the world, so to be able to work with her was really cool,’ Moolman said.

Recent exhibitions, and collaborations, by Moolman include: Made You Look: Dandyism And Black Masculinity at The Photographer’s Gallery, London (2016); 2026, together with Ib Kamara(as a part of Utopian Voices), at Somerset House, London (2016); 2026, together with Ib Kamara, at CFHILL, Stockholm (2017); ÊTRE LÀ Afrique du Sud, une scène contemporaine / Being There: South Africa, A Contemporary Art Scene at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2017); Items, Is Fashion Modern at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, U.S.A. (2017 - 2018); Double-Page Spread, together with Ib Kamara, at Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, London (2018) and Soft Criminal, together with Ib Kamara & Gareth Wrighton,at Red Hook Labs, New York, U.S.A. (2018).

Numerous key galleries and museums, such as Red Hook Labs, have featured Moolman’s work in the past. Moolman has also been featured in articles for AnOther, ArtDaily and ARTFORUM.

In 2020, Moolman won the Rudin Prize for Emerging Photographers, and she has worked with big clients including British Vogue, Dazed, Double, i-D, Le Monde, Burberry and Nike. Her fashion shoots, however, are about more than just sleek silhouettes and couture design. Moolman is using her platform to challenge negative media portrayals of South Africa – and counter the stereotypes perpetuated about her home country.

IB KAMARA (Sierra Leone, born 1990)

Ib Kamara is a multi-talented Sierra Leone-born, London-based creative working as a stylist, creative director, journalist, and model. Kamara’s approach is based upon exploration, gender identity, fluidity and queerness. Other fields of interest are Blackness, African identity and beauty. He attributes his early studies of science with helping him develop his focus and attention to detail. For his work as a stylist, Kamara was awarded the Isabella Blow Award by the British Fashion Council on 29 November 2021.When he received the Isabella Blow award, he said he was proud to be a beneficiary of the WWD awards’ new focus on individual change-makers rather than companies and brands.

Kamara worked as a senior editor-at-large for i-D magazine from 2019 to 2021 and has also worked for Vogue, British Vogue, Vogue Italia, System and W. In January 2021, he was named editor-in-chief of Dazed magazine. His first issue of Dazed celebrated the National Health Service and people working together for change, and Kamara’s aim is for the magazine to be globally relevant to readers from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures (Kamara tries to secure contributors from all around the world, especially from under-represented fashion centres such as those in Africa and the Middle East). Following the death of Virgil Abloh (of Louis Vuitton menswear and Off-White), he was also appointed Art & Image Director for Off-White on 30 April 2022.

Ib Kamara and his parents took refuge with relatives in Gambia (after civil war broke out in Sierra Leone) before settling in London when Kamara was sixteen years old. Kamara attributes his turbulent early years (and growing up watching world affairs develop via CNN and BBC) with inspiring his focus on current affairs. Before coming to London, he spent three years studying sciences (with the intention of becoming a doctor) but ultimately decided to pursue fashion as a career option. After enrolling in an art & design course at Westminster Kingsway College, London, Kamara went on to study fashion and communication at Central Saint Martins, London.

Originally aspiring to be a designer, Kamara, instead, became an assistant to the stylist Barry Kamen (1963 – 2015, British artist, stylist and model) which established his early career in the field. As a stylist Kamara was popular with the late Virgil Abloh (who described Kamara as a prime example of how ‘diversity can bring out the best of the fashion industry’) and also styled catwalks and advertising campaigns for Riccardo Tisci (born 1974, Italian fashion designer who, in 2018, was appointed chief creative officer of Burberry). Other clients include Chanel, Stella McCartney and Dior. Comme des Garçons invited him to design hats for their show, and H&M signed him up to direct their first circularly designed (zero-waste) collection. He also worked with Rihanna, both for her label Fenty and as her personal stylist when she was featured on the cover of Dazed.

In 2021, Iain R. Webb (British writer, curator and academic, appointed Professor of Fashion & Design at Kingston School of Art, London, in 2016; also an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins, London, and Bath Spa University, Bath, United Kingdom) was asked by the Fashion Museum, Bath, to choose garments representing 2020 for their ‘Dress of the Year’ collection. Among the outfits he chose to represent 2020 was a unique dress called ‘A Dress of Hope’, designed by Dazed’s art director, Gareth Wrighton, and styled by Kamara out of vintage table linens and doilies collected by Webb.

In addition to having their collaborative design chosen as a look for 2020, Kamara and Wrighton were the journalists chosen by the Fashion Museum, Bath, to select the Dress of the Year for 2021. They chose the Armani wrap dress worn by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (born 1981), for her and her husband’s (Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, born 1984) infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey. Kamara and Wrighton argued that because Oprah with Meghan and Harry became an ‘iconic’ and ‘definitive anti-establishment moment’ that would endure in the British collective memory, it made sense to consider the dress worn by the pregnant Duchess as part of this story.