His practice is rooted in the streets and barracks of his childhood, but his gaze stretches outward—toward myth, toward possibility, toward a shared visual language that moves with the body. Abbah’s pictures—of young figures leaping, pausing, resisting—treat motion as testimony: proof of freedom, of becoming, of a culture that travels without a passport.

In his frames, athletic gestures sit beside traditional dress, rural textures, and fashion’s symbolic play. The result is more than performance; it’s a conversation between eras and geographies, where a vertical jump can echo a ritual, and a sprint can read like a prayer. Abbah’s work suggests that sport isn’t just competition—it’s a connector, a way for communities to see themselves anew.

We sat down with Abbah to talk about growing up in Africa, teaching himself photography, and why bridging cultures through sport can expand what young people believe is possible.

African sports imprinting

“I was born in Abuja, Nigeria and was lucky enough to grow up and study inside the police barracks because of my dad. He was a policeman and happens to be a huge Manchester United fan. We watched a lot of football together. I wasn’t an athletic kid, I didn’t perform well in sports, but I loved observing. I remember an exhibition game in Abuja when Manchester United visited to play Portsmouth. I saw Cristiano Ronaldo then. That memory stayed with me, it showed me sport as spectacle, as feeling.

A year after secondary school my mom pushed me to learn more skills. I chose photography right away and completely taught myself—first by making pictures for friends on their phones, then with a small camera that ran on disposable batteries. After my first year at university, in 2019, I saved up money for my first “professional” camera. At the beginning I was a “regular” photographer: portraits, and small paid gigs. Soon I wanted to do something different, something honest to me and my soul. I turned toward my own experiences: youth, faith, hope, melancholia, strength and toward Afrocentrism and the idea of freedom. That’s why you’ll often see a young person leaping in my work: it’s how I picture being young and free.”

Art & Sports

“Of all forms of expression, art and sport demand presence. They let you be fully yourself. I don’t think freedom here will come only through politics; I believe in a revolution of culture, and art and sport already live in people’s hands. If more young people tap into them, they become real tools for change. There’s so much creativity and spirit here in Africa. My work tries to gather those small stories and turn them into images.

Direct narratives are often ignored, like the simple truth that playing football keeps kids away from street trouble. But when art and sport connect, people understand the story. Features from larger magazines feel like a blessing and a push you didn’t know you needed. They remind me the work is bigger than self-gratification. Someone I’ll never meet might see an image and decide to become an athlete or an artist. Between the small scale I work at and those large platforms, many lives can be touched.”

New elements and old traditions

“I’ve always loved and looked up at Greek mythology. I look for lines that connect cultures and eras. Sport is part of human culture everywhere, so I ask myself: what bridges can my mind build? Could the Maasai’s famous vertical jump relate to basketball? Could American football sit inside an African visual language and symbolism? I’m not the first to ask these questions and try to find these red cultural lines, but I want people to look and think about it again. Art must make you feel something: curiosity, tenderness, discomfort. If a photograph provokes thought and opens your imagination, it’s doing its work.

We’re underrepresented in many places, certain sports or Olympic disciplines for instance. Images can spark conversations before participation catches up. If I make a body of work around Nigerian cyclists, I’m exaggerating a possibility, planting a seed in the viewer’s mind. Maybe that’s how change begins, locally, quietly. I believe in small starts; that’s how I began too.”

New sports explorations

“I’m fascinated by many sports, and already have in mind a few that I haven’t touched yet in my photography. I think about javelin and archery, and I love martial arts. There have been Nigerians who’ve become MMA world champions, and that lineage interests me. I also want to do more with swimming. I’m drawn to bodies and water connection and the way light plays on the surface; I’ve made some images with “extreme” movement in water and want to keep exploring that. The baseline in all of it for me is always the youth concept: the sense of time when the sun is high and your strength is right there. You can do whatever you want or at least you can try.

The fun aspect of my sports themed photos is that most of the people in those pictures aren’t professional athletes, they’re my friends. For me it’s about the idea first. We study the gesture, the stance, the feeling, and bring it to life together. They love watching the real athletes as much as I do, so there’s this shared curiosity that fuels the image. The point is to keep exploring, to offer viewers something new each time.”

Future goals

“If I would have the chance to work with elite athletes, I absolutely will. I’ve already had promising conversations about photographing some major sports figures. It might be Nigerians; it might be athletes from anywhere. What excites me is going beyond the expected, not just uniforms and standard portraiture. Fashion is part of my language, so I imagine bringing all my interests into one frame. It sounds playful, but it’s an invitation into my mind: letting elements collide until a new story appears. When the opportunity comes, I’ll hopefully make something truly memorable.

Later this year I’ll show some photographs in an exhibition during the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. My aim is to build something that speaks for me and to others. Not just pushing narratives, but the ones I truly believe matter, trusting that our human experiences are shared. I’m layering ideas, letting many things happen in one frame, and trying to find a new way of photographing that feels alive to me.”