unVeiled features a performance video by artist Medina Dugger (USA/NIGERIA), creative director Bubu Ogisi (NIGERIA) and produced by Osione Itegboje (NIGERIA).The project was created on behalf of the hFACTOR collective for a Queering Spaces themed art project. Titled “unVeiled” and inspired in-part by Medina's photographic series ‘Enshroud’ which examined the role Nigerian-muslim style plays in identity and self-expression, the project has been exhibited at M.Bassy in Hamburg and featured on ArtTwentyOne. The performance positions a woman on the streets of Lagos Island, removing her chador head covering, only to reveal another one in its place. In Lagos, Muslim women often choose bold, bright colours and patterns, illustrating the influence of Nigerian style on the tradition. The performance presents an infinite, un-ending stream of removal and replacement. It reflects on the age-old practice of veiling and the controversial, symbolic perceptions and realities associated with the women who wear them, underlying a woman’s decision to veil or unveil and ultimately supporting her freedom of choice.

Chromatin By Francois Beaurain and Medina Dugger is the animated variation of Medina’s Chroma photo project which celebrates women’s hair styles in Nigeria. Chroma finds its inspiration in hair colour trends in Lagos and by the late Nigerian photographer J.D. Okhai Ojeikere. Chromatin features geometrical and fractal constructions made from Nigerian hair designs which are geometrical and fractal constructs in-and-of themselves. Chromatin offers a ‘mise en abyme' and a deeper insight into the geometry behind African hairstyles, highlighting the importance of this practice specific to Africa and the diaspora. Fractals are at the heart of African design and art. Prior to the arrival of Europeans to the African continent, African societies developed recursive patterns (with smaller parts mirroring larger parts), which informed the layout of African villages, hairdos and patterns in African art. These fractals can be found from ancient Egypt to Sub-Saharan Africa at large, but were completely ignored by the West, which only conceptualized fractals by the end of the XXth century. The fact that the Europeans were unable to understand the subtleties of fractals, underscores a limiting, ethnocentric perspective which undoubtedly contributed to their assessment of African art and societies as primitive, when, on this specific point of art and mathematics, the Western world was (at least) many centuries behind. Braiding is one of the rare contemporary cultural practice where fractals can still be found in Africa. African hair designs are among the last remaining remnants of an ancient African cultural pillar that has been almost completely annihilated by centuries of colonization and cultural domination. With Chromatin, Francois and Medina are not only highlighting the geometrical patterns in African hairdos, they’re also reenvisioning fractals in contemporary African art.