Nigerian photographer Michael Oyinbokure, known professionally as Mike Kure, is transforming how the world sees African migrants through his powerful photography. The UK-based artist creates counter-narratives that challenge the stereotypical portrayals of immigrants as displaced, desperate, or criminal that dominate mainstream media coverage. Instead, his work presents African immigrants as resilient, inventive individuals who maintain strong connections to their homelands while building new lives abroad.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1997, Oyinbokure initially studied computer science at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta before earning a master's degree in project management from Coventry University in London. His photography career began through his fascination with displaying and archiving photographs on internet platforms like Instagram. He moved to the UK in 2022 to pursue his studies and soon turned his camera toward his fellow migrants.

Oyinbokure draws inspiration from renowned photographers including Seydou Keïta, a celebrated Malian photographer, and Rotimi Fani-Kayode, a Nigerian photographer who relocated to the UK with his parents in 1966 following Nigerian independence and during the crisis that led to the Nigeria-Biafra war. Through photography, Oyinbokure found a powerful language to express experiences of prejudice, displacement, and the identity crises he witnessed both in Nigeria and the UK.

The photographer's approach combines documentary-style images of migrants engaged in economic activities with carefully curated studio portraits enhanced by body painting and costume displays. His work illuminates the everyday realities that define Black immigrant lives while showcasing the cultural heritage and creative traditions they bring with them. Through various techniques, Oyinbokure portrays immigrants as people who carry knowledge and navigate complex questions of identity, belonging, and survival.

One of Oyinbokure's most notable projects, "Masked Realities" from 2024, demonstrates his storytelling approach. Working with Lebanese-Nigerian painter Sinatra Zantout and Nigerian immigrants in Peckham, UK, the project features women engaged in their daily work - running traditional African clothing stalls and offering hairstyling services. These images symbolize both economic mobility and cultural identity, telling stories of economic integration, resilience, and women striving to survive and thrive in new environments.

The "Masked Realities" project goes beyond documenting labor and survival by encoding elements of cultural heritage through the aesthetics of African roots. Some photographs from the series were translated into paintings by Zantout and exhibited alongside Oyinbokure's full body of work at the Play Room Gallery in London. The collaboration earned recognition with a piece receiving the Dubel Prize, while another artwork from his partnership with Nigerian artist Ken Nwadiogbu was nominated for the Circa Prize.

Oyinbokure also adopts a performative approach that involves careful curation of his subjects, exploiting the creative potential of pose and incorporating visual elements like costumes, accessories, and body painting in studio setups. This technique recalls African studio portrait photography of the early 1900s, the genre that brought Mali's Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta into the spotlight. While those earlier photographers created images signifying Africans' placement within modernity and allowed viewers to imagine liberation, Oyinbokure curates bodies through facial expressions, body paintings, and gestures to speak of the emotional burdens of diaspora life.

This approach is evident in series like "Echoes of Pain," "The Truce," "Crowned in Silence," and "In Bloom." The "In Bloom" series, created by working with a young Somalian woman living in London who was coping with her parents' loss, uses facial expressions, body movements, and blurs produced through multiple exposures to evoke profound loss. This bereavement transcends the personal, mirroring the broader sense of estrangement that often defines the African migrant experience.

The young artist continues pushing the conceptual boundaries of art photography by increasingly using props and accessories like mats and travel boxes that carry Nigerian cultural symbolism and evoke movement and migration. His images reach broad audiences through exhibitions and sharing on his website and social media platforms, featuring in art shows with names like "Echoes of Pain," "Boundaries and Borders," "Echoes of the Past," and "Boundless Horizons."

Oyinbokure's work takes on particular significance amid harsh immigration policies and rising racial and xenophobic hostilities worldwide. These attitudes are often justified by media portrayals of migrants as illegal, defiant threats to security and economic stability. Driven by a desire to tell untold stories that don't conform to dominant stereotypes, Oyinbokure presents Africans living their lives, carrying their cultures, and helping build communities - showing real people rather than faceless numbers.