QUIET WOMEN DON’T MAKE HISTORY

Words by fayemi shakur l Images by Phillis Kwentoh

Developing a sense of identity can be challenging for young Nigerian women. They’re taught to know their place, and there are rigid expectations about which careers they should choose. Photographer Phillis Kwentoh, 25, rejects that. “Many people have told me that I should have been born a boy. I won’t hinder myself because of someone else’s opinion,’’ she says.

Her parents expected Phillis to be a doctor, but at the University of Connecticut, she switched her major from pre-med to print journalism to photojournalism. For a whole semester, she didn’t tell her parents. When they found out, they weren’t pleased. Her mother told her she was going to end up homeless and living in a box. “Nigerian parents don’t understand the liberal arts world,” Phillis explains. “They want their children to pursue something practical and safe.”

“I showed my mother some of my writings in college about Hurricane Katrina and my mother said, ‘I hope you know you can’t have the kind of journalism career in Nigeria that you can have in America. They will kill you’,” Phillis says, describing the corruption and lack of equality rampant in Africa. “It’s that serious there.”

But Phillis was inspired to become a photographer when she saw Robin Romano’s Stolen Childhood photos about child labor while interning at the William Benton Museum of Art, which specialized in human rights work.

Ambitious but still uncertain about her abilities, she bought a digital SLR camera and returned to her native Nigeria later that summer. Originally born in Texas, it had been fifteen years since she had been back. She was captivated by the vibrancy of her homeland and developed her photos into a series about Africa. “I just felt everything around me was so beautiful and that was reflected in the pictures. Even when I went to the market, even shooting the poor people out there, there’s a beauty in them and there was color everywhere.”

The museum later exhibited her work and after a successful first show in Brooklyn curated by Kareem Black at Harriet’s Alter Ego, she decided photography more than print journalism was the path she wanted to take. “I’m into portraits because they capture who a person is in that moment and it’s great storytelling. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to be a photojournalist. I think storytelling is what attracted me to journalism in the first place. It’s true when they say a picture says a thousand words. Actually it says way more.”

Currently, Phillis works for Essence Magazine shooting street fashion and as production assistant on cover shoots. Her work has also been featured in Parlour Magazine and Vogue Italia. “I’m very picky about how I shoot for Street Style. I’m not so much into fashion, but I really love style - how someone adorns themselves and accessories themselves. Its not a façade that they put on, it’s a dressing up of who they are. Fashion is here and now and style is timeless. But no matter what they are wearing, she always tells her subjects to be natural. Better than posing, be yourself. I just want to capture who you are.”

After four years of shooting professionally, she still feels new in the game and hopes to use her voice and creativity to become an international philanthropist. “In America there is a definite struggle for the poor but there are so many government programs that can help you. In Nigeria if you’re poor, you are shit out of luck. There’s no welfare, there’s no WIC. There are people who live in dirty dug out ditches on the side of the road.”

Her advice to aspiring photographers: Don’t call yourself aspiring. Either you’re doing it or you’re not. If you’re serious then, pick up a camera and shoot. “I definitely believe all my experiences were a part of my destiny and I made the right decision in not becoming a doctor. I know my parents are still a little nervous but they see that I’m consistent about it and I am successful so they support me and I’m truly grateful.”

On December 25, 2011 a sect known as Boko Hakram bombed a Catholic church in Lagos, Nigeria killing at least 39 people with the majority dying on the steps of the church after celebrating Christmas Mass. Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The group, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege", is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. Phillis' story is dedicated to the lives lost, Nigeria’s unseen beauty and hopes for a more peaceful future.