Can We All Stop Pretending?

Kresge Art Center, MSU, EL 09/2024

Residential College of Art and Humanities, MSU, EL 02/2025

This body of work presents a series of photographs captured between 2019 and 2023 across six African countries: Cape Verde, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, and Kenya. Through these images, Vadu Rodrigues seeks to highlight Positive African and the richness of African culture, daily life, and landscapes by offering a counter-narrative that celebrates the beauty and dignity of the continent.

In a striking visual approach, Rodrigues removes the black skin from portraits and street scenes to provoke reflection on African identity and the notion of the "right to opacity"—a concept that defends the complexity and unknowability of the Black experience. Accompanied by poetry and quotations, the photographs invite viewers to confront the historical and ongoing exploitation of Black bodies and to reconsider ingrained narratives around race, visibility, and representation.