Draft:Damilola Onafuwa

Damilola Michael Onafuwa is a Nigerian visual artist, documentary photographer and filmmaker. Damilola uses his captivating works as a tool to present a new perspective on the lives of people and their cultures, by highlighting human interest stories in its purest form, and increasing consciousness surrounding social issues in society. He is notable for producing projects like “Angels Among Men”, “Beautiful Noise” and“My Granddad’s Possessions”. Damilola's works have earned him international commissions and features with organizations such as Bloomberg, Heifer International, Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, Vlisco, Ishk Tolaram Foundation, and UN agencies including WFP , UNOCHA and UNICEF.

Damilola is the founder and creative director of StoryMaxima - a media and production services company based in Lagos, Nigeria, specialized in visual storytelling through photography and documentary films. StoryMaxima was founded with the intention to drive impact, and contribute extensively to the narrative change and image of the African continent.

Early life
Born in Lagos State, into a family of eight siblings, Damilola spent a lot of his teenage years exploring his creativity. He became a self-taught graphic designer at age 17. Certain design projects required images that depicted the African perspective on social issues and when Damilola could not find these references he needed to tell his stories, he explored creating his point of view through photography. Officially beginning his career in photography at the age of 19.

In february 2018, Damilola curated his first solo photography exhibition titled “Angels among men”, in partnership with Onome Akinlolu Majaro (OAM) Foundation, to tackle the misconceptions about people born and/or living with albinism.

This thought-provoking exhibition granted Damilola an opportunity to host his first TEDx Talk in August 2018, titled ‘Understanding and overcoming myths behind biases’, where he discussed the cultural myths, “seemingly harmless folklores”, stereotypes and daily lives of albinos living in Nigeria, and the importance for society to educate themselves on the facts of albinism and treat individuals born with albinism as well as they treat themselves.

2015 - 2019: Early photography, TEDx Talk, nominations and Film work
In 2015, he became a photography consultant for UNICEF Nigeria for the ‘Hard to Reach Project, Nigeria’. During this project, as documentary storytelling typically requires, Damilola travelled across 6 states in Nigeria – Bauchi, Borno, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and Yobe, to explore the social and economic issues affecting the people who were relevant to this story.

In February 2018, Damilola curated his first solo photography exhibition titled “Angels among men”, in partnership with Onome Akinlolu Majaro (OAM) Foundation, to tackle the misconceptions about people born and living with albinism. With this exhibition, Damilola highlighted the silent struggles and lives of albinos living in Nigeria, whilst challenging society to overcome the myths and unfair biases towards individuals and groups.

This thought-provoking exhibition granted Damilola an opportunity to host his first TEDx Talk in 2018, titled ‘Understanding and overcoming myths behind biases’, where he discussed the cultural myths, “seemingly harmless folklores”, stereotypes and daily lives of albinos living in Nigeria, and the importance for society to educate themselves on the facts of albinism, and to treat individuals born with albinism as well as they treat themselves.

2019 - 2022: Career expansion
In March 2019, The World Press Photo Foundation announced Damilola Onafuwa as one of the 245 nominees for the 2019 Joop Swart Masterclass.

Subsequently, in April 2019, Damilola Onafuwa participated in the Global Short Docs Forum (GSDF) which took place in Kyiv, Ukraine as a part of Docudays UA Film Festival. After a global call for participants, GSDF selected only 16 creative filmmakers from the numerous entries. Participants had an opportunity to attend a 4-day residential workshop with masterclasses from industry decision makers, pitch meetings and collaborations.

In July of the same year, Damilola was a visual art and photography contributor to Agbowó Magazine’s – “The Limits Issue”

In 2021, Damilola was hired by the United Nations office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) to capture ‘The Cost of Hunger in north east Nigeria. Damilola shooting style consists of creating depth, multi-shot setups and low camera angles through wide-angle lenses. He often uses storyboards to visualize his sequences before going to the field to bring a story of interest to life.

In 2022, Damilola curated a portrait collection featuring children among items his Granddad left behind titled "Grandad's Possessions". These portraits reflect the endless cycle of eras repeating themselves; with the children immersed in settings of vinyl discs, old television sets, cassette players and other antiques. These items reflect multiple ‘timelines’ - to some individuals these items are nostalgic, to others it is vintage or classical and to a few, these items are completely unreal.

2023 – present: Established Career
From 2019 till date, Damilola Onafuwa has been a Senior Fellow at Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Fellowship is a “peer centered network…across 96 countries, that supports connectivity… and visibility for social innovators.” Skoll Fellows are carefully selected thought-leaders from various industries, and each year, a new cohort of Fellows meet at Oxford to share learnings and network with other innovators.

In November 2023, Damilola and his team at StoryMaxima organized a 2-day intensive visual documentary storytelling workshop titled “StoryMaxima’s Doc-You Mentary Bootcamp”, to empower early-mid career documentary filmmakers and photographers.

With 10 participants in attendance and an A-star line up of facilitators and industry professionals such as Taiwo Adeyemi, Sophie Bouillon, Simpa Samson, Omoregie Osakpolor, Temitope Dada (Oluwadabest) and Itty Okim, StoryMaxima’s Doc-You Mentary Bootcamp focused on the technical aspects of documenting social interest stories, the best creative practices, personal branding, the importance of visual stories and more.

2017 - 2018
Nominee – The Future Awards Africa Prize for Photography

Member – APJD (Africa Photo-Journalism Database)

2019
Participant - Global Short Docs Forum

2019 - Present
Fellow – Skoll World Forum