Woki N. Masssaquoi.
I am Vai Kpa Mende.
My social practice traverses photography, painting, movement, and performance. Grounded in sacred lineage, memory, and identity, I explore Black life across time and spaces. Through these mediums, I tell stories that honor my ancestral roots, beauty, and the cultural continuities of the African diaspora.
My journey as a self-taught photographer began in 2008, when my father gifted me my first compact camera. Photography quickly became a vessel for understanding myself, community, and history. After reconsidering a move to California, I deepened my creative development by interning with Mobolaji Dawodu as an assistant fashion stylist and with Xango Republic. I later trained in the Meisner technique under Melvin Williams, performing at the Producers Club in NYC with Theater for a New Generation. My artistic practice also extends to dance, having toured nationally and internationally with Grammy-nominated Malian vocalist Awa Sangho for The Festival International Nuits d'Afrique, and to my painting exhibited in a group show with #DayOnesArt at Flux Factory in Queens, NY. I was also awarded the Black Utopian Fellowship, which supported the expansion of my interdisciplinary practice.
Since refocusing on photography in 2015, with a nudge from a master photographer, I photographed the first Sierra Leone Diaspora Investment Conference, which was an opportunity to connect my passion in a global diasporic exchange.
Today, my social practice continues to offer visual storytelling that captures the everyday lives and triumphs of Black people and our descendants. Whether conceptually or street, I create images that affirm the presence, contributions, sacred beauty and lineage of the African communities, while also envisioning futures of joy, liberation, and belonging.