Behind the Scenes: 'Tinko'

'Tinko' is a multimedia collection by Mide King that weaves together photography and video to create an immersive exploration of unspoken yearnings. Through carefully orchestrated stills and moving imagery, the collection captures the visceral experience of souls crying out for release.

At its heart, 'Tinko' examines adults who carry within them an unextinguished flame of youthful exuberance—vitality that society demands be subdued or forgotten. King's lens reveals the beautiful contradiction of maturity: how we gain access to luxury and high fashion, yet find ourselves bound by expectations about when and where such privileges should be expressed.

The collection challenges adult propriety. Here, haute couture doesn't wait for boardroom meetings or gallery openings—it becomes the costume for pure, unguarded play. King captures subjects transforming designer pieces into vehicles of joy, subverting the notion that beauty must be reserved for society's prescribed "special occasions."

Through intimate research, King illuminates the particular experience of Nigerian women who, upon entering adulthood, often find their access to uninhibited joy systematically diminished by family obligations and cultural expectations. The collection documents these women reclaiming their right to rapture—finding sanctuary in shared experience with those who understand the profound need for spaces where judgment dissolves.

'Tinko' preserves those rare moments when the adult facade drops away, revealing the luminous child within. Fashion becomes freedom, luxury transforms into liberation, and the camera witnesses souls refusing to surrender their light to conformity.

A multimedia testament to the eternal youth that lives within us all, waiting for permission to breathe.