Namsa Leuba (b. 1982)
Damien, 2015
Fiber pigment print on Dibond
Purchased with generous funding from Nancy Herman Frehling ’65 and Leslie Cypen Diamond ’96
2017.7
Namsa Leuba was born in Switzerland in 1982 and grew up immersed in mixed cultures with a Swiss father and Guinean mother. Traveling through Guinea as a child allowed Leuba to gain new insights into the animist beliefs that are deeply rooted in her mother’s heritage. Leuba is inspired by the belief that everything from objects, places, and creatures all possess a spiritual essence and wants to use her photography to highlight the beauty and interconnectedness of the world around her. She uses her photography work to further her connection to her animist beliefs and African heritage as she set off on a mission to explore African identity through her camera lens.
Leuba’s many series of photographs aim to “capture the invisible” and recontextualize the body with its relationship to the spirits. She chose to do this through fashion. Fashion curation works alongside her photographs to tell a story that highlights symbols of the cultures she meets. The selection of patterns, colors, and fabrics matter as the presentation of these elements signal the specific culture and significance of the clothing. Her combination of fashion and photography allows Leuba to go beyond the constraints of the modern world and enter the animist spiritual territory that she wishes to share.
Damien, 2015, is part of Leuba’s “Next Generation Lagos” series. Leuba produced the series at her residency with Art Twenty One in Lagos, Nigeria. She sought to capture the energy of the city of Lagos by hiring people she met on the streets of Lagos for models and collaborating with local Nigerian fashion designers to bring her vision to life. Leuba would meet with the models and listen to their life stories so that she could curate a photoshoot that would be a direct reflection of the life they wanted to share. Her use of bright, fresh colors incorporated into the clothing and face paint of her figures were intentionally chosen to represent the model in the way they wished to be seen. The photograph “Damien” was shot in a studio setting and features a man in front of a plain pink background. The figure stands alone, center stage, letting the bright colors of his clothing, makeup, and strong stance tell a story of confidence and pride.
Namsa Leuba studied photography at ECAL, the Lausanne University of Art and Design and earned both her Bachelor of Arts in visual communication and Master's in artistic direction. Postgrad, she studied photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Since then, her work has traveled worldwide with exhibitions in France, Spain, Los Angeles, Denmark, South Korea, and others. She is the recipient of the PhotoGlobal award at the 2012 International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères, France and first prize winner at the 2010 Planches Contact festival in Deauville, France. Leuba’s career as a photographer has also led her to collaborate on fashion campaigns for Dior, Christian Lacroix, and Nike.
