Q&A: Ekow Eshun on Style, Race and Identity
Writer, journalist and broadcaster Ekow Eshun was the youngest editor of a British men's magazine at Arena and served as Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art until 2010. He regularly appears as a cultural critic on TV and radio and has also written a book about his Ghanaian-British identity, Black Gold of the Sun. In Made You Look at the Photographers' Gallery, Eshun has curated an exhibition of photography dedicated to the male dandy. I got the chance to talk to him about style, politics and Prince.
Eli Goldstone: You’ve had a varied career: is this show the natural conglomerate of your interests (in art, fashion and politics)?
Ekow Eshun: I guess that’s a good way to put it. It wasn’t necessarily my intention going into the show but I find it hard to ever really separate out my interests. How can you not think about politics when you’re thinking about art? Or fashion come to that? It all merges together and certainly this show is a way to explore all of those topics, plus a few others like race, identity and masculinity, through the prism of portrait photography. Shooting with a wide angle lens attached to your camera can help create some memorable shots when you're doing portrait photography .
Eli: What role has style played in your own identity as a black man?
Ekow: Style is key. There’s a temptation to look at it as something superficial but I’d say it’s crucial. As a black person you’re judged all the time by your appearance, from the colour of your skin to the way you carry yourself walking down the street. This breeds a certain self-consciousness that can, in the worst of cases, be crippling. So choosing to dress well, with style, is about asserting a personal politics. That doesn’t mean you have to go about dressed in a sharp suit. It’s less what you wear than how you wear it. It’s about taking control of how you’re seen and asserting your presence in the world on your own terms.
Eli: Is ‘Made You Look’ a provocation of the critical white gaze?
Ekow: It’s not necessarily critical of the white gaze. It just takes as a given that such a thing exists and explores the responses by photographers and the subjects they shoot to that fact. Some of those responses are defiant, others are provocative or playful, amused or ironic.
Eli: You and your brother Kodwo are both involved in the arts; how much of this is a virtue of your upbringing?
Ekow: I think it’s a reflection of our parents’ benign indifference. Pretty much every African parent wants their children to become a doctor or a lawyer. Our parents paid lip service to that but I’m not convinced their heart was ever really in it. They mostly just left us to get on with our own thing. As a consequence my brother and I spent a lot of time listening to music, reading comics and science fiction books and getting lost in our own world. We’ve been living out our fascinations ever since.
Eli: Prince was in many ways the consummate black dandy. Did he have an impact on you growing up?
Ekow: Prince was – is – my absolute musical hero. And yes, he was the quintessence of the black dandy as a figure who blurred conventions of gender, taste and respectability and defined himself over and over on his own terms. He was a huge source of creative and personal inspiration. I interviewed him at Paisley Park some years ago. It was a strange and slightly unsettling occasion and a deeply memorable one, which I guess is how things should be when you’re dealing with someone like him.
Eli: You have talked about your own crises of identity, being British-born to Ghanaian parents – do you think at the moment, on the cusp of the EU Referendum, that there is a more general anxiety around Britishness?
Ekow: Yes, absolutely. The referendum vote has unleashed Britain’s id – all of these fevered Brexit fantasies about our strength and greatness as a nation essentially come from a deep melancholy about the end of empire. I’m both repulsed and fascinated by this idea that Britain can turn its back on the world and be great again. It seems to ignore the course of history over the last half century and the development of a much more interconnected, interdependent world.
Eli: In your book you say that we find our home by laying claim to the place around us: do we also find ourselves by laying claim to our identities?
Ekow: Absolutely, an identity is obviously something you’re born with. But it’s also something that you can discover and create for yourself. In the immortal words of Eric B and Rakim, ‘It ain’t where you’re from it’s where you’re at.’
Eli: Finally, tell us about your favourite item of clothing.
Ekow: Hmm, tricky one in that I think as you get older you get caught up in a constant process of refinement - trying to find the trousers or jacket that’s of the perfect cut and quality. For me, the search is always about elegance and simplicity. I don’t know if I ever alight on a single favourite item. It’s a never ending quest.