J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain dedicated an exhibition to him from April 4 to May 27, 2000, presenting sixty-four photographs from the Hairstyles series for the first time outside Nigeria. His work was integrated into the Fondation Cartier's collection on this occasion and was notably featured in the exhibition Les Visitants by Guillermo Kuitca, at the CCK in Buenos Aires in 2017–2018.

J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere discovered photography at the age of nineteen. After working as a journalist and photographer, he opened his studio, Foto Ojeikere, in 1975. His work is now globally recognized for his emblematic Hairstyles series, initiated in 1968, dedicated to Nigerian women's hairstyles. For over forty years, Ojeikere systematically photographed these hair creations, primarily from the back, in black and white with a Rolleiflex 6x6. The absence of background, soft lighting, and rigorous framing lend these images an almost abstract dimension, revealing the structure and creativity of these ephemeral forms. Comprising nearly a thousand photographs, this series constitutes a unique heritage, simultaneously aesthetic, anthropological, and documentary, bearing witness to the social, cultural, and stylistic transformations of contemporary Nigeria. Ojeikere considered hairstyling a living sculpture whose memory his images were intended to preserve.