Boluwatife Oyediran's inverted portraits capture migrant identity

Boluwatife Oyediran, a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist, accidentally inverted a photograph of African boys in Photoshop at the Rhode Island School of Design, turning their skin cerulean blue. This mistake sparked his concept of "inverted blackness," a series of photographic-negative portraits of Black migrants in the United States. The subjects are friends, colleagues, and acquaintances from RISD, Brown University, and volunteer work in Rhode Island's African communities. Oyediran, also a writer, studied literature in Nigeria and included a short story about a Nigerian immigrant in his RISD thesis. He is currently a Sonny Mehta Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, working on a novel. His art focuses on the specific experience of Black migrants who navigate dual cultures, visa deadlines, and assimilation without losing their heritage. He also runs a Substack photoblog, Inverted Blackness, featuring photographs and oral histories.