Wax is a material long embedded in Indigenous African traditions and ceremonial practices—a conduit between the material and spiritual, the seen and the unseen. It holds heat, carries scent, marks ritual, and transforms under pressure. Existing between solid and liquid states, wax symbolises impermanence, adaptability, and the possibility of becoming otherwise.

CIRE (Wax) is a photographic series that draws on the cultural and symbolic meanings of wax to explore identity as a shifting, relational state. Referencing both its material properties and its metaphoric weight, the work engages ideas of transformation, malleability, and the unstable contours of selfhood.

The series explores intersections of gender, spirituality, and culture, with a particular focus on gender non-conformity shaped by ancestral and social forces. Rather than presenting identity as fixed, CIRE proposes a form of becoming that is continuous and responsive—much like wax in ritual, shaped by fire, breath, and intention.

Drawing from elemental symbolism and African ritual frameworks, the work engages themes of change, resistance, and renewal. By positioning the body as both vessel and agent of transformation, CIRE reflects on the porous boundaries of gender, culture, and becoming.

Created across Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Senegal, the project carries with it the textures of travel, memory, and collaboration. The artist carried this film by car, bus, boat, pragya tricycle, plane, and pirogue—crossing the Atlantic from Australia to West Africa and onward to the UK. Each image bears the trace of its passage, embedded with the histories and hands that shaped it.

CIRE was shot on film across Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Senegal. Transported with both care and chaos, the film has moved by car, bus, boat, pragya tricycle, plane, and pirogue—crossing the Atlantic from Australia to Africa, and eventually to the UK. It’s journey has been shaped by movement, memory, and persistence. From the villages of Adesawa in Kumasi, to the transatlantic slave castles of Gorée Island, to the Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, each location is held in the film’s material trace.

It was hand-developed in a kitchen in Accra with David Nana Opoku—using chemicals brought from Europe—on a hot Harmattan afternoon, just before a bowl of Asanka’s pepe soup to welcome the New Year. I carried it across four national borders by road—at one point crossing into Nigeria in the front seat of a police vehicle—before finally arriving in the UK for darkroom processing.

It’s taken a great alot to be here.