Join artist Bidemi Oloyede for a conversation with the AGO’s Julie Crooks about his street and portrait photography.

Bidemi Oloyede is originally from Port Harcourt, Nigeria now based in Toronto. He holds a BFA in Photography from OCAD University. Bidemi is an emerging street and portrait photographer who captures the energy and emotion of people in their natural environment and social landscapes in a documentary style using predominantly black and white film. His impulse documentary style is a reflection of the interaction or inner dialogue between the photographer and the subject. Oloyede is interested and invested in the physicality of film, the historical and chemical context and legacy of image making and the laborious process of traditional darkroom techniques. He seeks to explore the ‘Human Condition’, everyday people and the influences behind how people function in their social-political contexts.

Julie Crooks is Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora at the AGO where she has curated Fragments of Epic Memory (2021), Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires (2018) and Free. Black. North (2017). Prior to joining the AGO in 2017, Julie Crooks curated exhibitions for many organizations including BAND (Black Artists Networks in Dialogue) and the Royal Ontario Museum’s Of Africa project. She holds a PhD from the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.