Photos from Khidr Joseph’s series “Watermelon 4 Sale”
It all started when…
SOULDEGA: Who are you? Where are you from? And what or who first inspired you to become an artist/ photographer?
KHIDR: My name is Khidr Joseph, and I’m from NYC. I was introduced to film photography in the 7th grade, and I became instantly hooked.
Photo from Khidr Joseph’s “G-Baby” series
SOULDEGA: Your self-portrait series “Watermelon 4 sale” & your series “G-baby” hits on a satirical level leaving your audience to think further and deeper about the imagery they are consuming. What lead you to take your work to a more ‘controversial’ route?
KHIDR: I don’t like calling my work controversial because that isn’t my intention behind creating this series. Making controversial work feels gimmicky to me. A lot of the work I create is based on history, cultural ideas, or my experiences. My thought process when making these images is straightforward. For example, white people used to use black babies as alligator bait. I recreated that image by putting on a KKK mask and placing a black baby on a fishing hook. There’s nothing controversial about that image because it’s based on a fact. There isn’t any room for debate. But I started making more political images during my junior year in college. This was during 2014-2016 when there was a series of black people being murdered by the police. I was just tired of making work that didn’t say anything.
SOULDEGA: We have been seeing wheat pastes of your photography series around the Bed-Stuy area and are amazed by how you showcase your work with such fearlessness. Can you share what motivated you to take it to the streets?
KHIDR: After I completed my senior thesis, I realized that there was a problem with my artist statement. The goal was to change the way my community precieved masculinity. The issue was that I was only showing my work in spaces where people would agree with me. I realized that wheat pasting was the only way I could gineunely challenge people perception within my community. Also, can you name 5 top tier black artist who has shown their work in the black community? You’re probably struggling thinking about it and that’s because they don’t. Every sculpture, painting, or drawing made by a black artist primarily exist in predominantly white spaces. So, I’m trying to make sure that the people I create art for are one’getting to see it.
SOULDEGA: We love your “Make Afro’s Great Again” campaign also. What gave you the idea to shine light on Black hair in this colorful portrait style?
KHIDR: There are people who really hate my Watermelon 4 Sale series. Half of the time the owner of a building isn’t the one responsible for tearing my work down. Some pedestrians get so angry that they try to rip it apart. I want to wheat paste my work on 50ft tall building but that’s probably a hard sale when it’s a picture of a KKK member and a baby. So, i decided to make something that less confrontational and easy digestable to the massive. The project was inspired by my mother always telling me to cut my hair as a kid. It’s been a while since I just openly rocked my Afro so I thought why not create a project celebrating natural hair.
SOULDEGA: How has the pandemic and recent uprisings and Revolution affect your creative process?
KHIDR: In the beginning it put me in overdrive because creating work about social issues is my lane. But after going to a couple of protest I had to tap out. It was annoying to attend protest with people who were on some performative shit. The black square pissed me off. So I decided I wasn’t going to participate in it anymore. I already dedicated my life to making work about black issues so I’m in it for the long run.
SOULDEGA: What artists (past or present) are you inspired by?
KHIDR: There isn’t many but I really admire the work Theaster Gates has done for his community as an artist. He’s doing alot of things that I would like to do in the future.
