Africhi

Nontsikelelo Veleko uses both street and fashion photography styles to explore self-representation through aesthetics and the role of clothing as a means of deliberately challenging assumptions of identity. She is specifically focused on the construction of Black identity through urban fashion styles in post-apartheid South Africa. A slight departure from her usual practice in street photography, Africhi is part of the larger series “Chinese/Japanese,” in which the artist (pictured) plays with her own identity by using makeup to further represent the ways people are marginalized and perceived as the “Other.”