Snapping - it is a Community Thing.

I am a photographer, or rather at some point loved to really engage in photography and developing the craft as an artist as opposed to for commercial purposes. I am usually found behind the camera, yet i am most comfortable in front of the camera when a random, ordinary person i happen to meet in a location that inspires me, takes photograph. 99% of the photographs taken off me are by your average lay person walking, living, sitting, chilling on the streets of Freetown. It is such fun to teach someone the basics of just pressing a button as you adjust yourself at an angle you think may work for the photograph. 

Photography by: A Girl ( i really need to get her name next time)

 Today i did the same thing. I spent time hanging out with some women and their three ridiculously joyful children, taking photographs and listening to the list of things the kids wanted me to bring back from them. Like i said, i just met them today. This immediate connection has inspired a new project that i hope to get under way this year. See #2014 is back to the craft, the art, the study that makes me feel whole.

 Inspiration ( as corney as this may sound) lives everywhere. Just choose to See.

fambul dem, this is how we do...

HuffImpact Post: Not Just Another Gender Violence Based Stastic

This is a blog  i wrote of the Huffington in commemoration of 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence

March 1st | The Inauguaration of Me| thefatoublog

Pot Of Gold| FatouWurie

Photography:

Is the personal self in expression, the value I choose to place on it is within the realm of art. It’s a reflection of how I see the world via space, objects, people and places. To monetize it is to reduce its process, which at times is painstakingly long, over thought, under thought, instinctual, raw, to a material plain that requires I working within a given time frame. Recognizing that this process does to fullfill my soul particularly because I earn my bread and butter in another sector, the blessing are abundant with the flexibility to CHOOSE to engage with photography, the utilization of my third eye, how, when and where at my own choosing. Recognition is important. I am learning.

Website:

It is okay for things to not work out. Compromising is not an option, in time my vision will manifest. I have poured that desire into the universe.

Love:

Liberates your fears for better or worse, your fears are liberated how you choose to interact with them comes to define the ethos and the energy of the relationship. Gratitude, love seeping into my veins, liberating fears. Learning to face these fears. Ya digg?

Strength:

In the knowledge that I am a growing woman. I am woman. That is enough. That is all I know.

On my journey seeking, exploring, understanding, faithful….i will find my pot of GOLD.

I BE LIBERIA

Monrovia, Liberia

snap shots of my short stint in Monrovia, Liberia. Slogan to remember: " i be liberia, rebuilding Liberia together"/ WORD. fambul dem this is how we do

WAR, DIAMONDS & 51 YEARS

As i drove from Roberts International Aiport to WFP i became increasingly excited, the significance of the next few days, 26th & 27th of April for Liberia and Sierra-Leone in particular had me in all kinds of spaces. Writing a poem entitled BEAR WITH ME which dealt with the 11 years of war, Charles Taylor, the failure of the international community and modes of peaces, it all felt surreal that i would be spending the next couple of days in Liberia visiting my father, conducting interviews for an NGO, going to a Timaya concert and spending time with my dear cousin.

OH MY JAH-ITS CREATIVE COLLECTIVE - RAW

last friday evening (april 20th) was an evening on its on, super special to me because along side two beautiful men (abdala & ahmad) we were able to put together a creative evening. It consisted of live music, pop, poetry, prose, humor, jazz, reggae- all sprinkled with a little soul at the beautiful restaurant Bliss. With 150+ at the event, it was packed at all times during the evening, food was being pass around, drinks ordered, art shared, and of course a rack with her latest collection, AMIZO of MARYZO DESIGNS graced us and dressed 3 of the artists who performed that evening. By the end of the night, i was happily exhausted. This is what we are aiming for, to gestate an artistic community rooted in integrity and accountability and most importantly the simple love of sharing their art with the rest of the world. It is healing, really healing i believe. In valuable lessons learned first time around and i look forward to where PART DEUX will take us.

ps- the photographs are curtsy of someone's iphone *bless their heart*

Heyden Adama-Pre-Show Practice

Bliss-The Bar

Heyden Adama-Pre-Show Practice

Ahmad & Myself

Bliss

Creative Collective Raw-the Crowd

Accapella- Best of Voices Group

Creative Collective

Heyden Adama & John

Star Zero Performs-Creative Collective

fambul dem this is how we do...

SNIPPET FROM THE FISTUAL CAMPAIGN. these women keep this woman going.

A TBA from the town of MATRUJUN, Southern Province, Sierra-leone

ITS ALL A BLUR up COUNTRY.

An ode to my trip up country to work with women who are affected by fistula for our NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FISTULA ON THE 26TH OF MARCH.  i decided i needed to take the weave off and do a 'country plant', meaning corn-roll my hair like the country girl that i am. I am happy that i've been given the opportunity to merge development and art together with this project, My job is to create a visual narrative of what it means to be a survivor of fistula, the communities most affected by it, the pertinent issue, and the incurable women...in essence science and statistics aside, the hope is to adequately amplify the voices of these women through this multimedia form of community.....

fambul dem this is how we do.....

.....MERCY!!!!!

Just wanted to share with you the style, confidence, beauty and light of this young lady who is the manager at photoshop studios on Wilkinson Road, freetown, Sierra-Leone. Always looking fabulous no matter the day or occasion, her light is also internal and i am very grateful to her for the support she continues to show me.....so for some Nigeria meets Salon Swagger....all i can say is LAWD HAVE MERCY!!!- this is Mercy.

vision is mission-THE 60% PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

 ROY RESTAURANT, NASSER AYOUB, U.S EMBASSY, HUSSAIN, MEDOSAT, COUNTRY LODGE, THE OFFICE, PHOTOSHOP.......and extra thanks to JAMES & MERCY! AND OF COURSE, ABDALLAH AT BLISS PATISSERIE.

Gratitude  to the most high, to the support system and to the sponsors and to the people i got to interact with and photograph to make this vision a reality. GRATITUDE. Bliss was Packed, the entertainment was beautiful, the photographs = my heart! Despite have no frames ( something had to not go as planned) and the stress of that, i exhale and simply live and breathe in GRATITUDE.

DRESS BY MARZYO

THE LADIES

THE FEW FRAMED PHOTOGRAPHS (WILL BE REFRAMED)

...my samples...the exhibition

Sample

Nervously Seeking Feedback

putting yourself out there is scary. that thought just dawned on me as my exhibition draws closer. I am nervous, just a little...okay a whole lot. The feeling of elation though cannot be traded for anything when you finally see your work materialize. I know that i have a lot of work still to be done on my craft as a photographer and self proclaimed writer and perhaps self proclaimed photographer as well. That will come in time, i am willing to put the work in. I was all gushy on friday when i got to hold my first sample photograph in my hands. Did i mention i am only slightly nervous.

If you are in freetown, do pass through on friday, march 2nd. 7pm onwards at Bliss Patisserie. I just got confirmation that St. Mary's super market on hill station will be giving me 12 bottles of wine...FOR FREE. 

Graditude.

fambul dem this is how we do...

ZEBRA CROSSING? WHAT IS IT FOR ANYWAY?

"A zebra crossing is a type of pedestrian crossing used in many places around the world. Its distinguishing feature is alternating dark and light stripes on the road surface, from which it derives its name. A zebra crossing typically gives extra rights of way to pedestrians." = YEAH, NO. NOT IN SIERRA-LEONE.

'SHAME': a page from the lyrical past

It’s a constant companion these days. Shame can be seen parading on the grey streets; proud to be so existent and thriving in the lives of many women I seem to speak with. Shame takes credit for feelings of fear, inadequacy and regret. It knows it can never die because it is constantly been produced, reproduced constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed with a verity that no pastor can fully conjure. Shame of the body, shame for the body, shame of sexuality, shame for sexuality, shame for wanting, shame of wanting, shame for needing, shame of needing, shame for hurting, shaming for been expressive in eyes, lips, tongue, hands and breasts. Shame, a companion that allows us to feel sub-atomic and expect sub-atomic influences in our lives because time and time again we question our self worth. We shame because we are told to shame. We embrace shame because a sense of innocence and wonder is deemed lost in an abyss of ‘woman-hood’ and ‘looseness’.

We begin to draw lines and draft territory and space in 'female land'. Divides erect as we chase penis’, hate penis’s and draw on our phallus of seduction in a terrain so fraught we invite patriarchy to thrive in the bodies of matriarchy. We create our own walls, nations, boundaries, categories and systems of ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘Virgins’ and ‘non-virgins’. ‘Easy’ and ‘non-easy’. ‘Wholesome’ and ‘wild’. Satanic verses arise and the jungle of competition and exclusion breathes so loudly that the sirens of peace and inclusivity become a mere whimper.

I feel as though I exist in such a jungle, a subaltern were trains of shame travel and stop traffic everyday. A world of hurt, a world of distrust, a world of disfranchisement, a world of embodied experiences all too scarred and unable to extend open arms to new arrivals in the world of ‘woman-hood.

fambul dem this is how we do...