Ajamu X

Ajamu X (born 1963 in Huddersfield) is a British artist, curator, archivist and activist. He is best known for his fine art photography which explores same-sex desire and the black male body, and his work as an archivist and activist to document the lives and experiences of black LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom.

Early life Ajamu was born in 1963 in Huddersfield to Jamaican parents. His grandparents arrived to England in 1958 and his parents followed in 1962.

Ajamu came out as gay to his parents in his late teens and describes their reaction as "impressively progressive for the times."

He was given the name Ajamu by one of his mentors in 1991; it means "he who fights for what he believes." More recent projects include Fierce: Portraits of Young Black Queers, an exhibition of 24 portraits of a "new generation of Black and proudly out young, emerging and established talent" at London's Guildhall Art Gallery in 2014, and I Am For You Can Enjoy with Khalil West at Contact Theatre, Manchester, in 2016, which uses photography and video, to explore the lives of queer Black male sex workers and their clients.

In 2000 Ajamu and Topher Campbell co-founded rukus! Federation, an "arts company dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the best in challenging, provocative works by black lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender artists nationally and internationally."

Ajamu was the manager of the Black LGBT Archive Project, a major initiative to develop an archive collection on "Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-Gender heritage, history and lived experience in the UK." The documentary film Brixton Recreation with Ajamu, directed by Danny Solle, features his experiences of cruising and sex as an out Black gay man in Brixton.

His fine art photography is in national and international collections including the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Autograph ABP in London, and the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York. Ajamu is co-chair of Centred, an LGBTQ community organisation in Soho.

Selected exhibitions

As artist

1992: From Where I Stand, Brixton Art Gallery, London 1997: Transforming the Crown, Caribbean Cultural Center, New York. 2004: Hidden Histories, Walsall New Art Gallery, England 2009: Familiar Strangers, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow 2010: Photoshow, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York 2011: Queer Self Portraits Now, Fred, London 2012: Future Histories, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow 2013: Fierce, Guildhall Art Gallery, London 2016: I Am For You Can Enjoy, Contact Theatre, Manchester 2019: Diasporic Self – Black Togetherness as Lingua Franca, Framer Framed, Amsterdam

As curator 2008: Outside Edge, Museum of Docklands, London 2016: Curatorial Resident, Visual AIDS, New York