#1-3: David Uzochuku

This is the work of photographer David Uzochuku, who is of Nigerian origin and currently based in Austria. David has created a myth system where we see African people conjured into what might be a sky or a sea, evoking images of migrants and refugees cast at sea. But the title of the work is *Styx*, turning the reality of the refugee and migrant crisis into something that looks spectacular, suspended beyond the real, into a dreamscape, into a floating environment. We might be in the sea, in space, or perhaps floating between the known, past, and future worlds.

Here, David Uzochuku is creating serpentine figures that seem to have come from the sea, part human, part serpent type, or perhaps mermen, figures crawling from the sea. What is going on here? We can think about some of these through histories related to slavery and forced transportation across the sea. We can also consider water as a site of African historical myth, with all sorts of deities and spirit figures associated with it.

The clever, dazzling, and mesmerizing thing about David Uzochukwu’s work is that he makes these dreams anew, on his own terms. We find ourselves in a condition of magic, immersed in the atmosphere of myth.