Do Not Send Me Out Among Strangers

Joshua Segun-Lean is a Nigerian writer essayist, and photographer. His work has  appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Jupiter Magazine, and Contemporary And.

‘Beautiful, strange, captivating’ – Olivia Laing‘Clear-eyed and brilliant and desperately sad’ – Sara Baume‘At its heart lies a raw testament to loss, distilled into a spare collection of images and words that is no less powerful than the too-much-information memoir that has become so ubiquitous … Do Not Send Me Out Among Strangers is a collection of brief journal entries – observations, accounts, and recollections– nested among a series of harsh black and white photographs of soil, rock, and debris, marked with occasional tufts of vegetation. This is the visual record of the search that occupies Segun-Lean’s lockdown days: he has been tasked with the dispersal of his father’s ashes. He thinks back on their strained relationship and his insecurity about the responsibility he has been given … Taken together, this collection of thoughts and images, speak of the complicated relationship we have to life, death, and disability – to the body in sickness and health, whole or incomplete.’ – Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts