Cian Oba-Smith is an Irish-Nigerian photographer whose work explores communities and subcultures in a global context. The relationship between human experience and environment is at the core of his projects. He has a particular interest in approaching subjects that are often misrepresented, with a view to presenting them in an alternate light. Oba-Smith was first featured at Peckham24 in Notes on a Native Son: After Baldwin, a group exhibition exploring contemporary Black masculinity, curated by Emma Bowkett and Jermaine Francis in 2023.

For the Eras edition, Oba-Smith returns to Copeland Gallery with Among Flowers, Tears and Rain, a long-term photographic investigation into the ongoing knife violence epidemic in London. Knife crime in England and Wales has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing by almost 80% since 2013/14. London accounts for a disproportionate share of offences, representing over 30% of all knife violence, compared to only 15.5% of the population. Statistics show that victims of knife-enabled crime are mainly male, and about half are under 25.

State bodies often over-prioritise a criminal justice approach to tackling this problem. Governments pledge more resources for police patrols and increased stop and search powers. These strategies neglect the structural issues that contribute to young people turning to knife violence, such as cuts to youth services, overburdened mental healthcare systems, unemployment and limited economic opportunity, family instability, and toxic masculinity.

Oba-Smith’s work humanises knife crime statistics, showing what gets left behind after the headlines fade. The work includes photographs of and interviews with people who have been affected by knife violence, as direct victims, or as family members of those injured or killed. The work is deeply influenced by Oba-Smith’s own adolescence in London, and the threats of violence that affected him and his peers. Ultimately, Among Flowers, Tears and Rain is an expression of profound anger at the state, and society as a whole, for its failure to young people, as well as a memorial to all those who have, and will continue to, lose their lives to knife violence.