Black Queerlooks is a solo exhibition presented by Abdi Osman that will showcase the works from the past two decades that he has been documenting of black queer life in diaspora.

“This work has been filtered through African ways of thinking about gender and sexuality that are not pathological. The work has been made in community and with community. To do this work I have utilized three terms that orient my practice and consciousness: khanis (Somali), shoga (Swahili) and labeeb (Somali) – these terms cover African queerness and transness. These three terms have been the central prism through which to view my documentary photographic and moving image work. These terms allow me to work with non-heterosexuality and gender non-conformity beyond western conceptions of those practices which is to say I am always working from an African consciousness. It is important for me to note that my work is not fundamentally concerned with speaking back to or even finding affinity with white western forms of sexuality. And my work is definitely not concerned with diversifying or rectifying white queer exclusions. My subjects might register as appearing to express and hold all the recognizable patterns of western queer behavior but that recognition or those apparent patterns should not be the basis for assuming a shared or common identity. Khanis, shoga and labeeb all mark the African diasporic presence of queer self/being beyond western markers of gender and sexuality – even in the west.” – Abdi Osman