Photographer Dola Posh Navigates Postnatal Depression Through Her Art

Dola Posh holds various identities, including photographer, woman, Nigerian, mother, and Briton. However, following childbirth, she experienced uncertainty regarding her sense of self. Six days subsequent to her daughter’s birth, she was hospitalized in England during a COVID-19 lockdown. She contemplated the alterations in her life and questioned whether she would resume her passion for photography. Due to visitation restrictions, family members frequently contacted her to inquire about her and the infant. Following a challenging pregnancy, Dola experienced significant pressure. Her mother resided thousands of miles away in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, a place Dola had departed two years prior. These circumstances led her “brain in a very dark place… I thought: ‘I’m me; the baby’s out, I’m still me.’ But no, I wasn’t me any more.” The erosion of identity can contribute to postnatal depression, a condition that impacts black women at a higher rate. Dola was experiencing this, though she did not identify it as such at the time. Upon her discharge from the hospital, she was almost instantly overwhelmed with unrequested counsel. She noted “too much talk, too much control around how I should raise the child. In a way that also affected my mind. It made me feel like I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t given the chance to be a mother.” The 33-year-old discusses the events of 2020 with a factual demeanor. While she refrains from crying on this occasion, she has previously shed many tears. During one night, exhausted from sleep deprivation, isolation, and the monotony of her new life, she heard a voice in her head instructing her to end her life. Feeling emotionally adrift, she grasped her blanket as though it were a life jacket. Her infant daughter, Monioluwa, whose name signifies “I have God” in Yoruba, was beside her. She sang familiar songs from her homeland. Subsequently, she placed a call in the middle of the night to her health visitor, who, fortunately, answered and consented to visit. She expressed, “I buried my head in shame, I just felt so much shame because it’s like I’m not even a good mother. I don’t have the strength to be a mother.” Dola was convinced to consult a therapist, who advised her to utilize her camera as a method for processing her emotions. While pursuing a marine biology degree in Nigeria, she acquired her photography skills, distinguishing herself with her dyed-gold hair and pink boots. Dola started establishing a reputation within Lagos’s predominantly male fashion and celebrity photography sectors. However, she was drawn to portraiture, finding it enabled her to record individuals’ lives and prompted subjects to reveal deeper aspects of themselves. As part of her therapy, she directed the camera lens towards herself, and by employing a phone application for remote camera control, she commenced creating a series of photographs featuring herself and Monioluwa. The mother-and-baby portrait, which draws inspiration from depictions of the Madonna and child, represents a foundational motif in Western art tradition. Dola’s photographic works align with this style, though the connection was initially subconscious and required a mentor to identify it. She grew up in a religious home; her father served as a bishop in a Nigerian church. Images of Mary and Jesus adorned the walls of her residence, and the motif of the mother and child appeared in Bibles and hymn books. She stated, “The colours: the green, red and gold; the gold frames and the light glow – growing up in that environment, it was all there in my subconscious.” These elements subsequently manifested in her portrait compositions and lighting. She reflected, “Sometimes you do things, you don’t even know why you do them and then when you sit down and reflect it’s like: ‘Oh!’” The veil, or head covering, which had been a component of her attire for church, also became a crucial aspect of her artistic creations. She explained, “When I put on the veil, it didn’t feel like that empty person any more. It felt more me… I was reconnecting with my family, it felt like I had their essence with me.” The undertaking began to assist Dola in gaining a clearer understanding of her emotions. She indicated that when she commenced sharing her narrative, stating “that motherhood was not all joys and I suffered from postnatal depression, that opened a door for me not to have shame any more.” She added, “Now I am starting to work on the stories of what actually happened and the darkness, how I crawled out of it, and try to depict that through images.” Earlier this year, Dola received an award from camera manufacturer Leica, which will enable her to proceed with her series and motivate more women, especially black women, to challenge the stigma associated with postnatal depression. She articulated, “I want a world where black mothers don’t have to carry so much burden and feel like they have to go through that journey alone and I want them to look in the media and see a reflection of themselves trying to make things work.” According to the Mental Health Foundation charity, black women in the UK are more prone to experiencing postnatal depression than other demographics. While the underlying causes are intricate, Dola asserts that increased openness is crucial for tackling this problem. She concluded, “It’s new for a woman to stand there and say: ‘I almost ended my life, I’m not ashamed of it – I am still an artist, I am still a woman and I have something to say.’”