Artists IN CONVERSATION: JOY UGIAGBE, PHOTOGRAPHER

In the interest of archive, I’ve decided to interview my artist friends and peers as we discuss their work, their process, inspiration and more. Because though they haven’t yet been written about by these big name publishers, their work means so much not just to me, but the craft whether its photography, visual art, music, poetry, etc. And so what better way to start than with my closest photography friend, the bestie, Joy Ugiagbe.

This is the full length of the interview edited only slightly for clarity removing most of the “uhms" and other filler.

Enjoy.

CT: And we will praise you for the rest of our days!

CT: Thank you for agreeing to do this.

JU: Thank you for deciding to do this. I am thankful.

CT: This is part of my artists in conversation project. I wanted to interview some of my peers and I think, you know, talk about their work. You’ve always been with me throughout a good bit of my journey. Long enough. And you have this show, “Neighborhood Watch” and I think it would be a great opportunity to dive deeper into it. There’s so much to say. I’ve watched your journey for several years now - almost half a decade. Ain’t that crazy.

JU: That’s wild.

CT: And so I think there’s so much to say. I’m gonna transcribe this interview. And I’m gonna have the audio available so people can hear the beautiful noise where I am, including the motorcycle and the cars by. But, people can also read it so it’s accessible. I wanna see how well you know me as a quiz. I’m gonna tell you. All you see is that there’s trees in the background and there’s a sky, without looking at my Find My cause you have my location, if I told you I’m in my favorite place, where am I?

JU: Druid Hill!

CT: Yes!

JU: That should be your middle name. At this point.

CT: Ya know, I was at my grandma’s funeral, rest in peace to her. My mom’s cousins got together. And it was interesting how they talked about Druid Hill Park and how my grandma’s brothers - their uncles - took them here as kids. I thought it was just something my mom enjoyed. Something that was just for my branch of the family. It was interesting to hear that and hear them have that experience and share how much the park went to them just out of the blue.

JU: Wow

CT: Shoutout to Druid Hill Park. But enough about that. That was a long ass introduction. See, I couldn’t be a talk show host cause I just be rambling on and on. Today is about you, Joy Ugiagbe. So tell us, let’s start, for people who don’t know who you are, can you give us a little background information?

JU: Okay! I definitely can. My name is Edoghoho Joy Ugiagbe. I was born in Nigeria. I came to America when I was just 6 years old. Grew up in the Bronx, New York. And then I came to Baltimore, Maryland about 7 years ago. 6, 7 years ago. And I’ve just been in the neighborhood trying to discover the city as well as discovering myself. In the midst of it, I’ve found beauty in the things and the people around me and just wanted to capture it and everything like that. And yeah, here I am, doing what I love.

CT:  That was very thorough. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always captured youth and children. How has that become such a poignant subject matter of yours? What draws you to capture children and youth?

JU: One of the reasons I enjoy capturing children and youth is simply because of how raw they are. How untouched they are with society in a weird way. You know, with kids - when you see kids you’re able to see their playfulness and just who they are. I don’t know how to explain it. The reason why I enjoy taking photos of kids is because of how natural they are when it comes to the playfulness and just me as a photographer. And having my camera around me when I’m with kids, I’m able to capture their youthfulness and it reminds me of my youth and everything like that. So thats one of the reasons why I like taking photos of kids.

CT: Nice. Tell us about your show “Neighborhood Watch”. What was the inspiration behind that? How did you curate those photos?

JU: Okay, so “Neighborhood Watch” was honestly something I had thought about for a very long time. The reason I bought it to life was because just being able to be in a community and being capture the community as it is I found a place like that in Baltimore City. So when I first came to Baltimore that’s when I started photography and everything to me just looked so new. It was a new city, and I found a new love with photography and so just walking around and being able to see the city for what it is. I wanted to capture it - to try to tell a different story, but in the midst of it I realized that - the photos that I was taking - I think I was trying to find myself in those photos so as far as the rawness and the seeing people as they are. I feel like in the earlier years in my photography I was trying to find who Joy is and I wasn’t able to identify that within myself so I tried to do that with the community. With each photos I was taking I was finding myself in those photos. I started taking photos of youth. I started taking people in the street, homeless people, everything like that. I saw myself in those spaces because sometimes you feel so lost in spaces and sometimes when we have emotions and memories and things like that we tend to forget those things. So me being in those spaces I wanted to capture those things to preserve it and to understand a little bit more of myself.

CT: Okay. I wanna ask, cause when I saw your show my first thought was Andre Wagner and I feel his approach to capturing people and neighborhood and youth is very similar. Are you familiar with his work?

JU: Ooh, yes! Jer. Yes, I’m definitely familiar with Andre’s work. Funnily enough, it’s him, its people like him, you know Devin Allen, you know Osaretin Ugiagbe, the way they do street photography I’m a fan of. You know in those styles. When I first came to Baltimore, when I was taking photos I was trying to figure out what I was doing with these photos. But when I found Andre, Devin, and dive deeper into my brother’s works, I saw that this is what I was trying to do. They were examples of people who inspired me. When I saw those works I told myself to keep going and keep building an archive. I say that to say I’m very familiar with him and I’m very inspired by his work.

CT: That’s good. I can definitely see where the connection is. I wanna talk about some specific photos now. The picture on the flyer is one of the pictures in the collection. It’s one of the first pictures that you see when you walk in. What’s the context of that photo?

JU: That photo is very funny. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I went to the Reservoir [Hill] community in Baltimore City. I was actually covering this story for AFRO news and as I was walking around they were having this event in the community and as I was walking around there was a playground where there were kids. I was just walking around, just gauging. You know I love children, so I was playing with them myself like “Oh my God I wish I could get on the swing”, interacting in the community and then I saw Zion, which is the little boy, and he was just playing. He was just playful. He was so expressive. His face was so expressive,  I was like “Oh my God who is this kid?” And so I introduced myself to him and was like “Could we be friends?” and just talking to him and stuff like that and he was interacting with me and he wanted to get on the slide. And as he got on the slide he put his face in the little holes that go down the slide. I don’t know how to explain but you know what I’m talking about. They have the little holes going down. Anyways, he poked his head and started doing some faces. And I was like “Oh my God this is perfect” This is so good. So I was like “Hey Zion”, “Hey Zion”.  He was just like poked his face all the way out and gave me this little weird stare. And I was just clicking. Click! Click! Click! He had different facial expressions. One of him was smiling. Another him was being mad. And the final of him was looking and he had this weird stare in his eyes and I was like “Oh my God, Bingo!". And funny enough when we were done with that shoot we walked around the park and I took more shots of him. And there were different shots, but he was the one that made me realize that it was time for me to do the show. His expression reminds me of a neighborhood watch - someone gauging, someone looking through, someone peeking. He solidified the whole show for me. Once I did that, I got a shot a week later. I need to figure out who to talk to to create my show which I did. So, yeah.

CT: Does Zion have a picture of himself? Does he have a picture?

JU: Of himself? Yes. Funny enough, I sent the photos to his mom because I had to ask. Being that I used the photo for my flyer, I had to ask his mom for permission cause it would be weird for her to see her kid everywhere and she be like “What?” and she wasn’t there the day I did the shoot. It was actually his niece - his aunt - I’m sorry. I ended up writing to her and asking for permission and she said “Oh my gosh I love the photos!” She actually used it on her credit card. She uses it everywhere. She was telling me she used it in different varieties of things in her home. So, yeah.

CT: I think that’s cool.

JU: Yeah, it’s really cool.

CT: Black, I mean, photography, is a way that we build archive and preserve our history, you know?

JU: Exactly. And who better to tell the story than us, you know?

CT: Exactly.

JU: I’m so sick and tired of other people telling our story and don’t look like us. It’s time for us to get that power back. There’s power in telling it the way they want to tell it. Rather than waiting for someone else to do it. You know? I hope that photography allows us to do so. I’m happy about that.

CT: Yes. Can you describe, well no, I wanna talk about another picture I enjoy. The picture of Brandon Scott, he has his hands on this youth with a shirt that says “From Baltimore With Love”. What was that moment like? I imagine it was another AFRO News?

JU: Yeah, that was another AFRO News story that I was covering. I believe it was “Baltimore Night Out” and it was just basically Mayor  BrandonScott going around the community showing love and support and it was different events in different parts of Baltimore City - for kids, for schools, for the communities and everything like that. In each space we went to, Brandon Scott was always just there and he was always interacting with the youth. And that photo was just very significant to me to because it shows how engaging he is not only the community but with the kids. Which is very important because they are our future. You know? That’s one thing I love about our Mayor - the fact that he’s very engaging. You know? He’s very humbled. He’s very playful. In those ways we respect him, we honor him as a neighborhood watch. I’m gonna put that in my photo book. I wanted to use that photo in my exhibition but because I didn’t really, you know, talk to him about it I didn’t feel like it was appropriate.

CT: You should’ve but that’s okay - better late than never. It’ll go in the book.

CT: Well, I just realized my laptop is at 3%.

JU: Oh!

CT: Yeah, that’s not good right? So I’m gonna ask you one last question. Maybe? When do you fly out to Nigeria?

JU: Tomorrow morning.

CT: Happy for you!

JU: Ahhhhh! Thank you!

CT: What’s the first place you get to stop.

JU: We’re stopping in London.

CT: Oooo you get to see London! And how long are you there?

JU: It’s like a one hour layover.

CT: Well that’s good, cause you got places to be!

JU: We ain’t going nowhere. We staying in. We’re gonna wait it out and everything like that. But I’m super excited. I’m super excited honestly ‘cause I get to go back to my childhood home and everything like that. Then go back to the village. Go back to where my parents were born. Get to see my extended families. And kinda just soak it all up and hopefully I’ll create a body of work while I’m there.

CT: I believe you you will and lastly, for now, ‘cause I do wanna pick this conversation back up. Maybe do a second part of this project. How can we support your work?

JU: Buy prints. Please! Prints! Prints! Prints! On demand. Upon request. So if you guys go on my Instagram page and see anything that you guys like, anything that catches your eyes just DM me and I’m able create a print for ya’ll and send it out. That’s one way to support me. Another way is to interact with my work, let me know what you guys think. I enjoy when people are able to interpret my work in different ways and teach me about something different. You know?