Art & Culture

What Can a Garment Reveal About Faith? Stephen Tayo Has an Answer

BYKhaoula Ghanem

July 15, 2026

For most people, clothing is something you wear. For Nigerian photographer Stephen Tayo, it has long been a way of understanding the world. “My interest stems from years of practice in fashion, particularly my fascination with clothing as a form of personal identity. I wanted to build on that foundation and use it as a yardstick to explore this body of work,” he tells MILLE. That idea sits at the heart of What Comes to Mind When You See the Garments?, his latest exhibition at the luxury and lifestyle concept store Alára in Lagos.

Running from Aug. 1 until Sept. 20, the month-and-a-half-long exhibition marks the 32-year-old’s first solo presentation with FF Projects—a curatorial platform championing Black art— and shifts away from the saturated colors that have become synonymous with his work. Instead, every image is rendered in black and white, documenting members of Nigeria’s Aladura movement across Lagos, Ibadan, Ekiti, and neighboring Benin Republic.

Emerging among Yoruba communities during the 1910s and 1920s, the Aladura movement developed into a distinct strand of Pentecostal Christianity rooted in prayer, divine healing, and spiritual revelation. The movement grew rapidly during the 1918 influenza pandemic and blended Christian teachings with Yoruba spiritual traditions, creating an expression of faith that resisted colonial missionary structures while remaining deeply tied to local cultural identity. The movement’s flowing white garments, known as aso-funfun or simply “the garment,” have since become one of its most recognizable signatures. For Tayo, however, the photographs are not an attempt to explain that spirituality.

“I have no direct personal relationship with the movement. That said, childhood friends have invited me to worship with them, and a few years ago my older brother became a member of one of the sects. For me, it has been more of a continuous observation. I’ve essentially been an observer throughout,” he explains.

That curiosity stretches back much further than the project itself. Asked about his earliest memories of the Aladura movement, Tayo recalls, “I believe my first experience was as a child. The uniqueness of the garment stayed with me visually and made me curious.”

That same curiosity eventually became a long-term photographic inquiry. “Before deciding to develop it into a series, I’ve always documented my encounters from an inquiry-based perspective. I’ve been working on the series for more than four years, and it remains an ongoing project for me.”

The exhibition title deliberately centers the garment rather than the religion itself. While faith remains deeply personal for those within the movement, Tayo’s attention stays fixed on what the camera can actually witness. “The key factor in my observation rests on the physical aspect of the garment what is visibly seen rather than the spiritual. I want to believe that the spiritual experience is deeply personal to those who worship within the sect and hold a direct personal belief. Ultimately, I’m only sharing my own point of view, hoping others can form their own while also encouraging open dialogue from different perspectives.”

The decision to strip away color followed naturally. “I’m happy to be exploring different ways to present my work. This is very much a work in progress as life itself is a form of progress. I photograph solely in black and white because it simply feels right for this body of work,” he explains.

Born in Lagos in 1994, Tayo first made his name documenting the city’s fashion scene before expanding into broader questions surrounding class, identity, race, and contemporary Nigerian life. Influenced by his philosophy studies at the University of Lagos, his photographs have appeared everywhere from the New York Times and Vogue to institutions including the V&A, Palais de Tokyo, Fotografiska, and the Brooklyn Museum.

Asked what comes to his own mind when he sees these garments, his answer is surprisingly simple: “Curiosity.” As for what visitors should take away from the exhibition? “I’ll leave that for them to decide.”

What Can a Garment Reveal About Faith? Stephen Tayo Has an Answer

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What Can a Garment Reveal About Faith? Stephen Tayo Has an Answer

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