Home From Home: Innovation through disruption – Daniel Oduntan
Daniel Oduntan portait - credit Nichola Richards
Daniel Oduntan is an interdisciplinary media artist based in London. As a self-taught photographer he developed his practice through documenting the effects of gentrification in South London. His work makes visible the true thoughts and feelings of the communities he documents through sustained relationships and a tacit knowledge. He has worked with the likes of the V&A and Warp Records as well as photographing legends such as Lee “Scratch” Perry and Laraaji to name a few. His practice is ever evolving and as such he continues to develop his strategic thinking towards creative directorship.
I initially connected with Daniel online a number of years ago when I came across his images of the Heygate Estate which moved me being a local resident and having focused my undergraduate dissertation Concrete Heroes & Villains: Has Brutalist Architecture fragmented or cemented communities in inner city London? (2014) on the subject of much of his work which we have spoken about lots over the years. With busy schedules it had been a while since we last caught up. We put in some time for a marathon catch up with numerous gems dropped.
Still from Did We Leave The Lights On (2019) Daniel Oduntan
PO: How would you describe what you do and the type of work that you make?
DO: I’ve been trying to move more towards art direction and creative strategy. I previously worked in digital media and publishing at the V&A providing content, delivering scripts, film editing and taking photos. I’m working on up-skilling myself and taking on roles that are career building, even as a practitioner. I’m currently doing a masters which is a way to explore creative thinking and build my portfolio as a multidisciplinary artist. I want those to co-exist, there’s a common theme. Artists are thought of as not being able to hold both of those heads – the creative and strategic or creating sustainable works. Right now, I’m exploring wearing the hats of Director and artist - to make this sustainable.
PO: Tell me about the masters that your currently doing
DO: It’s called Make Your Own Masters (M.Y.O.M) and you design the masters yourself. You get in contact with practitioners and they send you briefs that you carry out. These briefs tend to be problems in the industry that they’ve faced and want you to interpret. It’s part education, part industry. I’ll be completing these briefs over the next year and receive feedback from these practitioners which will add/enhance the masters overall. Because it’s led by our interests, you become a master in that area become you’ve designed.
PO: How are you managing to balance your work as a multidisciplinary artist whilst on this masters programme?
DO: From a health point of view I’ve got these three pillars - I’m exploring financial, physical and mental health. I’m trying to ensure there is a synergy and they are complementing one another. You do a project, it pays well, but your work every single hour and then you burnt out. You get paid but you’re experiencing fatigue which can lead to a host of mental health problems. It snowballs to you not being able to answer emails and impacting long-term business. It’s about keeping this wellness at the forefront. It’s different when you don’t have any links or foundation the creative arts, especially those from working-class backgrounds because you don’t have anything to fall back on.
Still from Did We Leave The Lights On (2019) Daniel Oduntan
PO: For many Black working class people barriers come in the form of not having the ‘right’ social capital or access to ‘cheat codes’ to help them navigate the cultural sector, what are your reflections this?
DO: It can be a real culture shock going into these spaces, you can end up going into industry underprepared. Most people who work in these sectors have never interacted with someone from an economically challenged background. We all know that the elevation in these sectors happens in social spaces. Industry and developing your career is a practice - it is maintaining relationships and if you’re not able to do that, you’ll find it very difficult. Really, we should be asking them (gatekeepers) “who in your phone book is from a different demographic, council estate or on a low paid wage?” You have to diversify your life before you diversify your workspace.
Cities are changing and the diaspora is moving out, the next curator/innovator of our time could be in Camberwell or Peckham. We need to support that work, build more innovation instead of a partnership, pop up or a takeover - if it's so good why is it always temporary, why don’t you put them on payroll?
PO: Lets talk a little more about the relationship between space and culture and the approaches that need to be taken to ensure that we thrive.
DO: People are going into spaces that aren’t cultivated yet, it’s like when you see a flower in concrete you say rah. I’ve been thinking a lot about a three-tier system - appropriation, appreciation and cultural allyship. The appropriator will see a flower cut it, put it in their blazer walk around with, collect all the accolades, won’t tell anyone where it’s from then you dash it.
The appreciator will dig it up, plant it and display it in their surroundings. You can only access the beauty of it through their home they dictate how its seen, the engagement, who gets to see it, if they don’t like you they won’t let you in and you won’t see. They appreciate it and they want to be at the forefront of it. It even happens with music; the reissues are all white and European. Shouldn’t Africans benefit from their rich archival history? You don’t even understand the language. These are all the nurturing things people don’t have access to.
Cultural allyship is what we need more of if we’re talking about sustainability - this is about asking “what can I do to help this grow?”. If it is in dark space, put it a light space. If it produces seeds, it takes replanting to prolong its longevity, it might but a bamboo poll in to help it grow. A lot people don’t want to do it because it’s a thankless job. We need more allies who are there to support and not dictate the culture. People who can see that’s it’s not easy to produce in particular spaces.
I’m someone who’s been in both worlds. If I’ve had to struggle. No one commissioned me to make those work, I had to give a damn. I was an amateur photographer, no one is telling these kids that the rules are going to be different until you get to a point to realise. These influencers are telling them half-truths. It took a long time and a lot of grit but I went from pulling carts in East Street market to the V&A. I could have easily not bothered. It’s all because of creativity. I was able to create assets that people could invest in. Institutions need to wake up and produce real allyship.
Daniel Oduntan Heygate Estate 2012
PO: The first time I encountered your work was a few years back, I saw your documentation of the Heygate estate and felt emotional as I saw a part of my history and experiences in those images. How did you start documenting the estate?
DO: Around 2010, I was in university studying a BA in Music and Media. The documentation came out of a project to create an audio-visual experience. I wanted to take sound and match them with pictures and vice versa. Up to 2010 I was dabbling with photography. People said I had an eye and someone gave me a camera. I realised that the area was changing and that people who document it aren’t normally from the area. I went to school in south, lived there, got in trouble. When I think about it, we’ve been doing social distancing for a minute, I’ve been very aware of my surroundings - if you notice there aren’t a lot of people in them. My friend Harry was studying photography taught me the basics. Up until then, I was self-taught. We’d go out and document the area - it was an exchange, it was two black people, from the area documenting it. We did this 2010 - 12. I wanted to create an exhibition/photobook, it didn’t happen, I fell out of love with life.
I revisited the photos through Did We Leave The Lights On? (2019) it looks at gentrification and regeneration. Should we be angry, should we move? What are the options and where do we go from there? A lot of it was very raw, bumping into people and just recording. I didn’t want to revisit it as a photographer, but I wanted to touch on it. I actually shot a lot of it on a hi-8 camera after work. I didn’t want to worry about colour balance or the ISO, I was tired, I just wanted to shoot. Minimal fuss, get it done and work with what you’ve got rather than making a big hype and getting a team. I just had to put it out and it was later shown at Tate and the V&A.
Daniel Oduntan The Rye Lane Boycott (1) 2012
PO: Over the years we’ve connected a lot by reflecting on our experiences of a life lived on endz, how has your concept of home/endz shifted as we’ve felt the effects of accelerated gentrification?
DO: The more you look into history you realise life is about migration. 40 years ago, Peckham was white. Things are always moving and shifting. One of the problems is that we’re not told we’re allowed to move. Social housing is meant to be a pitstop - it’s a place for them to say we’ll reduce your living expenses and give you local resources such as libraries and community centres. The idea is you better yourself and upskills while you’re there. There are people who are in working-class poverty, they work every day but are still poor. In school I didn’t learn about equity or how to save, the lack of education doesn’t help people move on. I wasn’t told how to fly so I thought I’d crash and burn.
All of our major cultural moments and shifts have been built on social housing. We create it, shift the culture and push it out to the world. Endz becomes this Mecca and the way things are done becomes a bible and people regurgitate this experience because they’ve found a way to monetise this experience this. You need to eat this food, dress this way, listen to this music - it perpetuates cultural repetition. To break out of that you need to break s lot of norms. It’s love-hate, you love the people, but things stagnate. It’s more about the hustle than the art form and people just copy. I sometimes think these reproductions aren’t critiqued enough by us. It’s not by default, it’s definitely by design. How do we help people break out of cycles of poverty?
PO: Your video study Did We Leave The Lights On? touches on so many commonly felt experiences of the diaspora, how did it feel for you to work through this?
DO: One of these things that strikes me is how hurtful regeneration can be. There’s a reason why my parents came here - it’s rooted in colonialism and oppression. We came here from a sense of powerlessness to further powerlessness where we can’t control our lives. I wanted to explore the anger and why is it so embedded in our culture. The pain is an echo of the reason we are here in the first place. A lot of the conversations are about what’s going on. I just wanted to explore threads of a lack of power and what it does to people. It’s like a machine you switch on and forget about, you leave the house and realise it’s still running but you can’t even open the door anymore because the locks have changed.
It’s a keyhole, looking through and giving perspective on what we experience every day. People often look at pruning the leaves rather than digging the roots because they’re not interested in the investigative side of things. Think about this, we compensated slave owners in this country. How is that fair? And you want us to be law abiding citizens? This is why people are out here doing a madness. Never judge a person’s actions until you know their living circumstances.
The scene at the end with the national theatre is a place of limbo - it’s a place of purgatory and perpetual space of anger. It’s like a hum a certain frequency that it operates on. Life is definitely not fair; we have to find the opportunities that make it worth it. Harry balances it - maybe you have to move out of London/Endz to reach a place of fulfilment or balance. Some of the greats amongst us will possible never be able to create and we have to create ourselves.
PO: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your practice?
DO: It’s limited me in terms of networking and physical space. I was meant to start my residency at protein studios and was looking forward to being in a space with lots of great minds. I’ve been forced to do a lot of self-reflection. I’m using this time to get my portfolio together; archiving, working on my website and being exhibition ready.
I’ve had a lot of work cancelled and financially it’s a lot of stress. We’re trying to figure out how to move. I applied for universal credit, they paid me the first time £86. You can see how the system is broke, they want you to be on your knees; they want you finished, clapped before they help you. I haven’t been on job seekers allowance since 2007. I’ve always been able to find a way and make something work. I might have to pick up work as a courier or make an account on fiver and do some editing work.
I’m also going over old work, things that I can produce online, reshape. It’s made me have to go inner and explore what I’m about which isn’t a bad thing. Financially it’s a bit peak, but everyone is going through it. I’ve got a day schedule and I’m trying not to be too hard on myself.
PO: What one song has been on your mind or speaks to your emotions in the current climate?
DO: Am I allowed two? The first is John Abercrombie – timeless, I used to play it when I was a trainee engineer, that was a period in my life when I was listening to it a lot. The second is Roberta flack - I can see the sun in late December – it’s a long track, twelve minutes long. I think I must need space to focus as they both change and shift midway. It feels like to sings to me. Maybe because I can’t go anywhere, music that is transportational and taking me on a journey feels important right now.