Gold Coast All photography by Viviane Sassen courtesy of Danziger Projects.

As global consumers we have become accustomed to beauty with exotic trimmings. For French VOGUE and i-D photographer Viviane Sassen, however, fashion trends are not to be confused with a deeper heartfelt mode of expression. Now on view at Danziger Projects through Apr 10 are selections from her three series ‘Die Son Sien Alles’ (The Sun Sees Everything), ‘Flamboya’, and ‘Ultra Violet’. Not quite haute couture, not quite documentary, Sassen’s photographs are the result of directed African pilgrimages and fall into an enigmatic category incorporating personal memory, imperialism, and sensual beauty. Evoking South Africa, Zambia and East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania), they intimate the mythologized ‘Other’ but moreover signify the fruits of close collaborative efforts. African models bathed in shadows or fog, configured in abstract sculptural formations, or marked with strident color, dually invoke indigenous spirituality and colonial superstition. In Sassen’s world of magical realism, bodies overlap or emerge in lush, unusual settings, intertwining the oft-illusory politics of ethnicity and aesthetics.

The artist discussed her work and ties to Africa in a candid interview with PLANET