Documents: alternative guide to dc underground | Ayodamola Okunseinde & Yulia Graham

Ayodamola Okunseinde & Yulia Graham’s collaborative project DOCUMENTS: alternative guide to dc underground will open at The Gallery at Vivid Solutions. DOCUMENTS investigating subjects of identity through photographic and physically interactive portraits. Based on the likenesses of artists from the DC metro area, the objective of this project is to chronicle connections between artists, their environment, personalities and work through portraiture. By exploring “subject” and “environment” interactively, the artists hope to revile previously unseen elements of creativity and personal connections that hold the DC area arts scene together.

Ayodamola Okunseinde is a well known media artist (aka Cultural Mixologist), who also has a day job at the IMF. His works deal primarily with the exploration of identity through interactivity. Formerly of Dissident Display, Ayodamola has deep roots in the Washington, DC arts community and plays an active role with Embassy of Finland. “I’m very into the idea of appropriation and re-contextualization of images and sound and the possibilities of 2.0 technology,” says Okunseinde. “I also like the concept of mixing cultures and theories. So I can take, let’s say, dance theory, and apply that theory to music, or apply musical theory to visual art and then apply that to culture and cultural understanding. I find that, in mixing those ideas, you arrive at a new understanding of the world.” More recently he worked with Kristina Bilonick’s Pleasant Plains Workshops on Georgia Avenue NW.

Okunseinde’s collaborator is no stranger to the DC arts scene either. Born in Yaroslavl, Russia, Yulia Graham currently lives in Washington DC and is an Award-winning graphic artist. Graham is a Senior Graphic and Web Designer with The Chronicle of Higher Education. She also works as a Senior Graphic Designer with AQUENT. Currently Yulia is pursuing MA in Graphic Design at Savannah College of Art and Design. Yulia has been photographing the DC arts scene since 2008. Her self created challenge was to connect with individuals engaged in creating the dynamic and diverse cultural life of Washington, DC. Her focus is larger scale portraits of DC-based artists, musicians, writers, friends and acquaintances: people who were born, chose to live, got stuck or waylaid in DC and now work and create here.