Akinbode Akinbiyi was born in 1946 in Oxford, England, to parents from Nigeria. He is a street photographer who takes slow walks through big cities like Bamako, Berlin, and Lagos, always with his Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera. He is someone who uses photography and poetry to tell stories about everyday life. He is not just interested in normal routines; he is more interested in the special quality of regular life, curious about how people live in their communities and spaces. He is mainly interested in the small things that happen in daily life, like politics, religion, and human nature. He wants to show what lies beneath the surface and what is meaningful in everyday life. He uses the streets as his studio, capturing the feelings of different places and people. He is also trying to grasp something important he remembers from his past, like the innocence and wonder he felt as a child in London and Lagos. This time, thanks to the MoMA and its New Photography 2023 exhibition, he invites us to go with him to the beach in Lagos, with his on-going series “Sea Never Dry”. Large square prints of 1m x 1m in gorgeous black and white cover the walls. The photographs were all taken at Bar Beach, on Victoria Island in Lagos, over several years. They shaw a couple watching a child on a horse, a group of boys, a lady looking at the sea or other passers-by.. These photographs hold a kind of innocence and childlike honesty and provide a certain degree of peace: a refreshing change amidst the bustling New York.
