Untitled (1), from the series Just Like Us

Coinciding with "Platform Africa", Aperture is pleased to present a series of limited-edition prints by artists featured in the issue. “Eric’s project Just Like Us (2016) explores the contradictions of queer life in Ghana and chronicles what it means to be “other” in a nation of people who have a remarkably well-defined sense of what binds them together. Gyamfi is motivated by the threat of LGBT people being eliminated from the archive of Ghanaian memory. If narratives about queer lives are not regarded as part of Ghana’s ordinary every day, a significant section of Ghanaian history will, as he says, “vanish.” His quiet images underscore the reasons why it is imperative to record, produce an archive of, and exhibit—to share in the open—the experiences of queer individuals in contemporary Ghanaian society.” –M. Neelika Jayawardane, from Aperture Issue #227: “Platform Africa”

Archival Pigment on Fiber-Based Baryta
Paper Size: 31 5/8 x 21 3/16 inches
Image Size: 31 1/2 x 21 1/16 inches
Edition of 5 and 2 Artist’s Proofs
Signed and numbered by the artist

Eric Gyamfi (b. 1990, Bekwai, Ghana) currently lives and works in Accra, Ghana. Gyamfi’s work consists of self-portraits, usually shot in monochrome, and various portrait series that comment on his country’s continual transition to modernity in the light of its traditions and customs and the people caught therein.