Owen Logan & Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Produced on the occasion of The King’s Peace: Realism and War exhibition at Stills, 01 August – 26 October 2014, curated by Kirsten Lloyd and Owen Logan. Featuring The Maverick Ejiogbe Twins, photographed by Owen Logan and told by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu.
Owen Logan’s photo-essay Masquerade: Michael Jackson Alive in Nigeria (2001 – 2005) follows the exploits of a costume performer as he travel across the country. The young black soul singer’s transformation into the white ‘king of pop’ is used as an allegory for the conflict-ridden situation in postcolonial Nigeria, a country which has been in a state of ongoing crisis since the civil war of 1967 to 1970. With the author Uzor Maxim Uzoatu. Logan presents a biting satire that critiques the relationship between the Nigerian political elite and foreign business interests.
Owen Logan is a photographer and writer based in Edinburgh and Toloun. He is also a contributing editor to the independent arts magazine Variant and a research fellow in the field of socio-economics at the University of Aberdeen. Over the course of the past 25 years Logan has exhibited widely both in Scotland (Third Eye Centre 1989, Stills 1989, CCA 1993, ECA 2000, Peacock Visual Arts 2008, Stills 2013) and internationally (The Photographers Gallery London 1994, State Museum, Munich, 1994, National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria 1998, The British Council, Kaduna, Nigeria, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford 1999, Museo de Etnografia y Folklore, MUSEF, La Paz, Bolivia 2009). During this time he also produced a series of photobooks publishes by Polygon, Cornerhouse and The British Council. His work is held in the collections of The National Galleries of Scotland, The Scottish Parliament and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 2006 he was awarded a British Academy Larger Research Grant to examine the theory and practice of photography in the context of informing social change.
