Peas in a Pod

Rachel Seidu, a young photographer from Lagos, Nigeria, explores themes of gender, intimacy and sexuality, combining conceptual and documentary approaches.
In connection with her work over the past several years on queerness in Nigeria, where homosexuality and transgender identity are punishable by imprisonment, the Institut pour la Photographie invited her for an artist residency to meet the queer community in Lille in the spring of 2025. This autumn’s exhibition dedicated to her work presents the photographs from that residency.

Rachel Seidu explores the multiple realities of queer people’s lives in a world increasingly threatened by ostracism.
Through photography, she delivers powerful visual narratives, laden with symbolic references, that celebrate the fullness of identity in all its facets. By questioning what it means to live in harmony with oneself, to assert one’s sexual and gender identity, corollaries of the notions of freedom and the right to self-determination, her approach takes on a universal character.

For about two weeks, Rachel Seidu met and photographed a dozen people in the Lille metropolitan area: couples, artists, DJs, drag queens and activists. Through the portraits she has taken in her studio, at Labo 148 at La Condition Publique (Roubaix), in an intimate setting or outdoors, she shows a relatively visible and often committed queer community, at a time when that of her own country is under threat.

Taken in Lagos or Lille, in very different contexts, her photographs all convey the same tenderness, joy and creativity as acts of resistance, a powerful connection to the community and a deep desire to live in harmony with oneself.

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Practical information

Théâtre du Nord
4 place du Général de Gaulle, Lille
theatredunord.fr

↘︎ Tuesday-Friday: 12:30 p.m. → 7 p.m.
↘︎ Saturday: 2 p.m. → 7 p.m.
↘︎ Closed on Sundays, Mondays and public holidays (except for performances)
↘︎ Free admission
↘︎ Exhibition accessible to people with reduced mobility