In my house, the family albums are kept in a drawer that stays shut most of the year. When you open them, you see my mother and my aunties at parties, their bodies pressed close in the heat of a Enugu afternoon. Attending a wedding, a christening, a traditional marriage or even a burial, together. They look like they are holding each other up. This work is a ai post-photography piece inspired by those women, but moved into a world that feels a bit more like a dream.
I called it Monuments because that is what these women are. They aren't statues made of stone or cold metal; they are monuments of skin, hair, and floral fabric. Even in this blue, digital space, they carry that same weight. They stand in a row, a line of sisterhood that doesn't break, wearing patterns that remind me of the living rooms I grew up in.
There is a sadness in the blue light, like the feeling of a memory that is starting to fade, but there is also a beauty in how steady they remain. They represent a community that doesn't need a camera to be real. It is a tribute to the way our women stand together, solid, wonderful, and permanent.
