A Photographic Tribute To India’s African King, Malik Ambar

Born as Chapu in 1548 southern Ethiopia, Malik Ambar’s journey to our part of the world tells the story of the rise and fall of dynasties, military excellence and the ascension of a slave to kingship. When Jahangir inherited the Mughal throne from his father, he also took over his father’s disdain for “Ambar of dark fate, that disastrous man.” His memoir refer to the African sultan as a rebel, a usurper and a plotter, with Jahangir even commissioning a work of art in 1615 depicting a hunt for Ambar’s head. Ambar’s legacy in india is one of great historical relevance. As The New Cambridge History of India: A social history of the Deccan, 1300-1761, puts it, “...Malik Ambar’s career can also provide a window onto a range of other issues pertaining to the social history of the Deccan—issues of race, class, or gender, and especially issues related to the institution of slavery.” It’s Ambar’s allure that drew menswear designer Grace Wales Bonner to India, along with photographer Harley Weir and stylist Tom Guinness. “I was drawn there to connect with Siddhis, Afro-Indians,” writes Wales Bonner for Dazed. “I was brought there to reflect on displacement, migration and exchange across the Indian Ocean.”

In the spring/summer issue of Dazed, the creative trio travelled to India for a shoot of Wales Bonner’s spring collection, ‘Malik,’ which she writes, “considered hybridity—a mirroring, through a myriad of lenses, of Bollywood/Nollywood, Hausa film (in particular Harafin So, a love story) and the work of Thione Seck, a Senegalese musician who conjures a fusion of west African and eastern acoustics. The collection considers Malik Ambar’s passage from a chained slave in Harar, Ethiopia to the revered ruler of the Deccan region of India in the early 17th century.”

As she worked, she writes that she soon realised that this image of transcendence was romanticised. Upon her revisit to India she saw new narratives, gained new insights and inspirations on which to create visual images. “We began to connect with new temporalities, new rhythms. There was an unspoken sensuality in bare chests, hands held tenderly, an essential closeness and intimacy between men that reminded me of the writing of Essex Hemphill and his reflections on brotherhood.”

In the haze of mehendi-streaked hair and vibrant coloured clothes, Wales Bonner was captivated by the ease and confidence of the men she observed at Udaipur’s Pichola lake. “Dressing was an emotional action, we were aware as we observed the men at Lake Pichola, who bathed, washed and educated us on the art. True style, we understood, was about ritual, sensitivity, conviction, flair, perversion. I replay images of wet skin, immaculate nails, proud men walking – absorb street fragrance, warmth,” she writes.

You can watch the video, courtesy of Dazed, here.

“I was excited by masculinity that felt more expressive, proud, at ease, flamboyant. Surrounded by richness, chiaroscuro, through new landscapes and new conversions, the work felt enriched in a new light,” states Wales Bonner in her part travelogue, part journal and all-round lyricism. Capturing their journey from the national-capital to Junagadh, in Gujarat, in ‘The Love with Which I Wash’ Weir films the various nuances of masculinity among the different kinds of people and places that they visited, as seen through Wales Bonner’s eyes.

Click here to read the full article by Grace Wales Bonner For Dazed.

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