Black Bodyscapes, by Huddersfield-born British artist Ajamu X, first exhibited in 1994, explores the private sexual realities of black gay men. Emerging from the final years of the Thatcher era and its aftermath, the work responds to a climate shaped by racism, civil uprisings, and the AIDS crisis, in which black and queer lives were heavily policed yet increasingly politicized.
Within this context, Black Bodyscapes examines how black gay men negotiate pleasure, intimacy, and desire in the face of racial and homophobic pressures. The project challenges the idea that black gay men share a single, unified identity, instead showing men with different bodies, desires, and sexual practices, from kink and role-play to quieter scenes of intimacy. Ajamu X refers to this focus on pleasure and self-defined desire as "Pleasure Activism": using explicit depictions of sex, fantasy, and touch to counter images that frame black queer life only through racism, illness, or shame.
Visually, the series is composed of black-and-white staged portraits that concentrate on the black male nude. Fetishism and fragmentation structure many of the images, with close framings on torsos, backs, or isolated body parts that both withhold and reveal. Platinum prints with deep, soft blacks invite a slow, tactile reading of the surface, drawing the viewer into an intimate encounter with flesh, fabric, and gesture. The mood is deliberately erotic and contemplative, balancing provocation with quiet attention to how bodies are lit, cropped, and posed.
Technically, Black Bodyscapes is grounded in analogue darkroom practice, with printing central to its look. Ajamu X describes the darkroom as a site of "magic alchemy" and treats printing as a key stage of meaning-making, not a neutral step between camera and image. Experimenting with exposure, contrast, and the handling of chemicals and paper, he uses these methods to produce dense blacks and finely graded mid-tones.
The 1994 showing of Black Bodyscapes at Camerawork marked Ajamu X’s emergence as a key voice in black queer photography in the UK. The project has since been revisited in exhibitions and publications, including Autograph’s Ajamu: The Patron Saint of Darkrooms and other major institutional surveys. His subsequent role as co-founder of the rukus! Black LGBTQ Archive, the presence of his work in major museum collections, and his honorary fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society in 2022 all underline how Black Bodyscapes helps shape the visual record of black queer Britain.
