At first, it’s unclear where these people might be. Somewhere tropical, maybe. Somewhere humid. Certainly somewhere fragrant — gardenias, pink lotion, shea butter — and carefree. There, beneath the cosmos, a face’s scattered freckles rhyme neatly with the stars. The tallest woman you’ve ever seen looms high above a city. Huddled closely, a man and a woman pose against a sheet of mottled sky, skin twinkling like all the world’s sunshine is trapped behind their faces. As the photographs accumulate, a setting crystal lizes: it’s a sun-drenched arcadia of leisure and Black beauty, a fictional place thirty-oneyear-old photographer William Ukoh calls “the Willyverse.” Obviously, the Willyverse doesn’t appear on any map, but when asked how he might describe it, Ukoh says only that it’s an imagined “midway point between Nigeria and Canada” — his place of birth and adopted homeland, respectively. Otherwise, he would prefer that the viewer made up their own interpretation.
Ukoh, who lives in Toronto, has been building this world since 2016. He has photographed artists and actors for GQ and beauty stories for Vogue Portugal. He has collaborated with fashion designers and exhibited in galleries across New York, Lagos, Toronto, and Amsterdam. All the while, he has refused to make a distinction between his fine art and his commercial work, preferring instead to see it all as the moving parts of one self-contained universe, a place that expands with each new image. “There’s definitely a surreal element to the world,” he says.
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Can Denser Be Better?
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Today’s vision of the good life is rooted in twentieth-century ideals. It’s time to reinvent it
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Still Unnamed
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The Case for Affordable Child Care
The pandemic has underscored the need for a national child care program
Welcome to the Willyverse
William Ukoh photographs a world of leisure and freedom
Home is Where the Heart Is
Arinze Stanley is Staying in Nigeria
HENRY NWOKO NATURAL BODYBUILDER
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The Specter of Hunger in Nigeria
Farmers are fleeing their lands just when the African nation needs them most
Peter Uka
ABC to XYZ
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Lagos Is Facing Its Bottle Problem
With plastic beverage container use doubling in three years, pressure to recycle is building
The Floating City
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Welcome To Nollywood
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Preserving Ancient Mysteries At The Nigerian National Museum
Many amazing works of art are on display at the Niegerian National Museum in Lagos.