{"id":77687,"date":"2025-11-20T18:00:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.1854.photography\/?p=77687"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:49:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:49:54","slug":"family-in-focus-ayan-abdi-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.1854.photography\/2025\/11\/family-in-focus-ayan-abdi-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayan Abdi’s contemporary portrait of kinship across the Global African Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"
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All images \u00a9 Ayan Abdi<\/h6>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]\n

The Somali-Norwegian photographer\u2019s project Family in Focus<\/em> was developed across several countries and continents, asking what a family constitutes<\/h2>\n

Rooted in Somaliland, born in Oslo and shaped by international travel across Europe, Africa and America, Ayan Abdi\u2019s work is a mosaic of photography and moving images that traces intergenerational African experiences across the continent and the diaspora. Abdi has intently expeditioned new contexts in Hargeisa, Oslo, Nairobi, Rio and New York to capture both chosen and biological familial ties in her ongoing project <\/span>Family in Focus<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the age of 11, Abdi has instinctively used the camera to feed her curiosity for people and the many cultures she has encountered.<\/span> \u201cI\u2019ve always heard that I was a people person,\u201d Abdi says, citing her family, something that crystallised once she began exploring her role in the global African image.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a trip to Egypt, she became obsessed with her mother\u2019s camera, adopting it as her own. Although a creative career wasn\u2019t explicitly encouraged, her family played a vital role in developing her eye. \u201cGrowing up, there were so many people coming in and out of our house\u2026 so a lot of people have lived with us\u201d. Her family had a spirit of hosting relatives, one of which left behind a family photo album that Abdi claimed as her own. The images recorded the very same intergenerational connections that anchor Abdi\u2019s practice today and shaped her earliest understanding of photography. This particular archive tied personal histories together across Norway, Somaliland and England. Abdi knew she had inherited something significant.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”77777″ img_size=”FULL” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”77779″ img_size=”FULL” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]\n

\n

“Here in Norway, the culture is to be outside and be in nature and it\u2019s something that Somali aunties have adapted to”<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]She explains that, before WhatsApp, her community relied on cassettes and photographs to keep up with each other\u2019s lives. \u201cPeople back in Somalia used to film themselves in a cassette and then send them over to Norway, or England or America\u2026and that\u2019s how they would remember each other.\u201d Abdi emphasises the value of putting effort into creating a memory. In Oslo, domestic settings became the backdrop for wearing one\u2019s finest clothes \u2013 an inspiration for her early editorial work that blended the home with African studio portraiture. <\/span>\u201c<\/i><\/b>When I do studio work, I take a lot of inspiration from the effort people used to take in taking photos of each other. How people used to get dressed and the whole ritual behind it,\u201d she says. There was a shared consensus that smelling your best was as important as looking your best. Relatives across the diaspora and the motherland perfumed the envelopes before mailing them, turning each one into a sensorial vessel of memory.<\/span> \u201cPeople will smell you through the photo, people will smell the emotions\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Abdi approaches documentary with care, softly enough to capture intimacy while remaining cognisant of the sensitivities of her work. Being welcomed into communities is a part of her process, and people willingly permit her to share their narrative. Rarely are her photos taken, they are gifted. Working strictly with film is a patient process just like these interactions whether it\u2019s a tender moment between a mother and child or between friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abdi tells me that one portrait taken in Nairobi was where <\/span>Family in Focus<\/span><\/i> found its start. Serendipity took the photographer to an orphanage in Kangemi where she met Priscilla holding her neighbour\u2019s daughter \u2013 while the neighbour had her hair braided by Priscilla\u2019s daughter. In the portrait lies an enchanting parable of community and entangled lives, a defining metaphor for the <\/span>Family in Focus <\/span><\/i>canon which continues in her moving image work.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”77778″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=”77775″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Abdi\u2019s understanding of film as a universal medium for storytelling began in her adolescence watching Bollywood movies void of subtitles. Drawn to dramatic colour palettes and choreography, she realised that feeling was the only metric that mattered to her and why she intently uses minimal dialogue in her films. <\/span>On Tip Toe <\/span><\/i>is a performance film co-directed by Abdi and Dina Al-Makhrami and follows the ballet dancers of Na Ponta dos P\u00e9s, an art school built by their instructor and matriarch Tuany Nascimento. Set in a haven in the favelas hanging over the city where youth feels truly sacred, we see a dream-like sequence of girlhood. A dance between play and performance, before falling into Nascimento\u2019s embrace.<\/span><\/p>\n

This fascination of matriarchal communities begins at home for Abdi. In <\/span>My Heroes,<\/span><\/i> Abdi spotlights Somali women in Oslo, including her mother, whose instinct, like Priscilla, is to lean on her community. In this microcosm of Somali womanhood we see their capacity to show up for one another, to play and reclaim the outdoors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Norway, the culture is to be outside and be in nature. It\u2019s literally ingrained in Norwegian culture and it\u2019s something that Somali aunties have adapted to.\u201d With a process rooted in rapport and invitation, Abdi plans to keep translating personal stories of the diaspora through pop-up studios and an upcoming <\/span>Family in Focus<\/span><\/i> book.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”77780″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_empty_space][vc_separator][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]@ayyanabdi<\/em><\/a>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Somali-Norwegian photographer\u2019s project Family in Focus was developed across several countries and continents, asking what a family constitutes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31100,"featured_media":77776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1186,10828,10],"tags":[467,2807,341,2335,1185,24,12410,1172,591,13614,4417,10276],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-77687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-displacement-migration","category-family","category-projects","tag-africa","tag-african-diaspora","tag-black-and-white","tag-community","tag-diaspora","tag-documentary","tag-kinship","tag-migration","tag-norway","tag-second-generation","tag-somalia","tag-somaliland","post_format-post-format-image"],"yoast_head":"\nAyan Abdi's contemporary portrait of kinship across the Global African Diaspora - 1854 Photography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Somali-Norwegian photographer\u2019s project Family in Focus was developed across several countries and continents, asking what a family constitutes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.1854.photography\/2025\/11\/family-in-focus-ayan-abdi-project\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ayan Abdi's contemporary portrait of kinship across the Global African Diaspora - 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