INTERVIEW WITH ABDI ALASOW
Three years ago, after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and daily life began to slowly resemble what we knew before the pandemic, Abdi Alasow began bringing his camera out in the summer. He began shooting everything, from parties to community gatherings, documenting his friends and family. This series took the name Summer is Ours which Alasow describes as capturing how black British youth reclaimed joy and space after ‘years of lockdown and austerity in the UK.’ Alasow decided to start posting these images on social media, ‘imagining it as my own exhibition,’ he told me. Quickly, his images gained a lot of traction on TikTok. Social media allowed his very localised practice, documenting a specific moment in time in black youth culture, to resonate all over the world (with comments coming as far as Uruguay). Since then, Alasow has set out, camera in hand, to tell stories of black love and joy documenting nightlife and community events in London.
His drive for documentation came from a school trip while they were studying There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack by Paul Gilory which dissects racism and nationalism in the United Kingdom. While visiting The Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, he tells me that viewing ‘slice of life’ archival material from the 80s resonated strongly with him and it was the moment he knew ‘this is what I want to do with my life.’ Immediately he bought a camera, and started taking photos of family and friends, however soon put his camera down to pursue teaching. Alasow’s photographic impulse is strongly influenced by joyful images past generations, but his every-day life inspired by the future generation, as he currently teaches in underprivileged areas where he grew up.
Abdi Alasow, Golden, 2025
Abdi Alasow, Under The Disco Lights, 2025
An event for Abdi is a place to tell a story but it is also representative of the wider context of time we are in: ‘event photography is involved in a moment of history, documenting the fashion, music, culture, and dancing.’ When Abdi is photographing an event, he tells me that he likes to act almost as if he is not there, ‘a fly on the wall, capturing moments.’ He looks within the crowd for fleeing moments to immortalise. To ensure the moment is candid, Abdi avoids using flash which he thinks can ‘impose the photographer into the scene... we don’t look with flash in our eyes’ and prefers to rely on the lights around him. In Under the Disco Lights, Golden, and That Feeling we can see how integral light is for Asalow. The images are evocative depictions of his subjects bathed in the colourful and golden lights of the club. He is attracted to ‘the blue light, the red light, the lights of the night’ where the colours turn a scene almost supernatural, a blend between reality and fantasy.
Looking to the future, Abdi tells me ‘I would like my work to act as a source point for what life was like for black British youth.’ His images tell stories not purely of individuals or a night out, but also the evolution of black british music and black british spaces in London. As the younger generation takes over, his hope is ‘that the next generation takes it even further than we did’ and that these emerging community-run spaces keep evolving. ‘I want to be remembered as someone who took photos of black people in the best light possible, told stories of our community in a way that was soft and romantic, pushed a central message of joy and always as a photographer who helped others and gave back as much as he could,’ he shares. It is certain that the joy that emanates through Abdi and the moments he captures will one day act as an archive that will inspire a future generation.
This piece was written for Party People: Figures on the Dancefloor which took place at The Roundhouse from November 2025 to February 2026 and published in the catalogue produced for the exhibition.
Abdi Alasow, That Feeling, 2025