In our ongoing series highlighting Dazed Club talent, we meet the multi-disciplinary Dazed Club creatives to look out for
Dazed Club Spotlight is our monthly series showcasing up-and-coming talent from the Dazed creative community. If you’d like to be featured, download the app HERE and join our community. You just have to post your best project(s) and the Dazed team will take a look – we select one person from the community to spotlight per week, which then end up in our monthly spotlight roundup.
“Over the course of my photography experience, fashion has become the theme that I’ve gravitated towards most strongly. I love mixing different universes through world-building, and assembling scenes infused by the energies of all the people that inspire me.
“I really enjoy playing with the energies of each individual I encounter with my camera. I like to give myself a rough guideline when I create my own projects, but once I’m on set, I let myself be carried away by the personality of the models I photograph. I’m also not afraid to completely change direction at the last moment, and to allow for happy accidents – I feel like some element of spontaneity is needed. Ultimately, it’s all about the mood in the moment I’m capturing an image.
“When shooting, I’m most excited by people with a strong and innate sense of their own personalities, people with a lot of self-confidence and character, but also people with extreme sensitivity who reveal their vulnerable sides.
“I work with a team that consists of a makeup artist, Nafik Bouchareb, and a stylist, Tessidy Soleil. We use my apartment balcony or my underground garage as a small studio, and find our designer set in flea markets. I mainly buy items for shoots at Marché Saint-Pierre – a fabric store in Paris.”
“We’re Ezra Alexander and Ramiyah Kofi, and this is our recent project Tie and Error. The shoot features four young Black British creatives who artfully blend traditional school uniform elements with alternative attire. Through this shoot, our aim was to start conversations around the public’s perception of Black youth, and to shine a light on the creative and alternative side of Black British culture.
Ramiyah: “My style stems a lot from the early 2000s British rap scene and has developed a lot over the years. I tend to get most of my style from the boys of the iconic grime scene, such as Dizzee and Skepta, and from the 00s images by Simon Wheatley. I like to add my own accessories to my looks and get a lot of inspiration from my surroundings, while also maintaining my own originality.”
Ezra: “We were meant to shoot this project entirely in a studio, but ended up taking to the streets to further convey our message. In terms of location, it was between Ancoats and Castlefield in Manchester, but we ultimately went with the latter because we loved the cobblestone roads. We also got the best of both worlds during shooting as it rained at first, then we caught the sun just before we wrapped.
“I want to add a massive thank you to Rachel Tsang – the photographer of this project. I’m so proud of her and her work and she had a major hand in bringing this vision to life. I also want to mention SpaceToCreate. The people who run it are truly genuine and I’m happy to be in a space that wants to see everyone succeed.”
“Women are always under so much pressure to focus on what they eat by men and wider society. Pie and Mash Girl shows the innocence of a girl who doesn’t care what these men think. This shoot is inspired by my own experiences as a woman from a working class background, growing up in the pie and mash shops which have always held a special place in my heart. With this project, I wanted to kickback against what society thinks a woman’s diet should look like. The rise of ‘girl dinners’ on social media has made me think more about the foods we eat, and I think generally there’s more fixation on women’s diets. I want this piece to have a wider impact and encourage young girls to not have to worry about what they eat for the sake of society, or feel that they need to adhere to patriarchal values.
“I’m inspired by my own British and Irish heritage, as well as my upbringing in the outskirts of London by my Irish mother. Pie and Mash Girl not only draws on the British cultural side, but also my own experience with my strong friend group of creative girls. We’ve inspired one another in a way that’s allowed us to forge our own creative community.”
“My name’s Anisha and I am Punjabi Indian, born and raised in England. I have witnessed a lot of indifference and racism due to the colour of my skin in so many different areas of life. Photography is one of my favourite things and has been a way for me to counter this experience. I want to stake some of my claim on photography because I feel that, as a practice, it is heavily skewed away from minorities. The images presented here are a combination of photos from the first exhibition with my collective OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, along with photos of the exhibition itself.
“A lot of my work has been focussed on the nightlife scene in Manchester, but I’m wanting to expand that and make this collective more widely about culture and art. My goal for the collective is to allow people to be able to tell their own stories and to thrive in their own ways.
“I would like to thank the beautiful people who took part in the exhibition, @dapicnik, @trnrsd and @gretaktaylor. I am taking submissions for people to post their work now that the @out.lookin.in page is fully up and running!”
