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In Nigeria, loving who you love can be a crime. The Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act of 2014 criminalizes same-sex relationships with penalties of up to fourteen years in prison, while queer Nigerians face routine harassment, violence, and rejection by family and community alike. In this climate of fear and enforced invisibility, queer photographer Alexandra Obochi has spent her life gaining the trust of individuals who have rarely seen themselves reflected—let alone celebrated.
Presence is an extraordinary collection of portraits. Through intimate, luminous images, Obochi renders queer Nigerians in their full humanity: at home, in community, in joy, in grief, in defiance. Her subjects offer themselves to the camera not as symbols of struggle, but as people living lives of beauty and complexity against formidable odds.
Her work refuses the distortions of victimhood and exceptionalism. Instead, it insists on something quieter and more radical: presence. This is a book about belonging—to oneself, to one another, and to a country that has not yet learned to claim them back.
Presence was designed by Emerson, Wajdowicz Studios (EWS).
Alexandra Obochi is a multidisciplinary creative with skills spanning many disciplines, including photography, creative/art direction, professional makeup artistry, and content creation. She is the founder and curator of PRISM, a bimonthly series of parties and wellness gatherings designed to create joyful, inclusive spaces for queer women and femme-identifying individuals in Abuja. The author of Presence (The New Press), she lives in Abuja, Nigeria.