Karl Ohiri (pronounced Oh-hir-ri) is a British-Nigerian visual artist and archival activist based in Helsinki. An alumnus of Goldsmiths, University of London, his conceptually driven practice examines how memory, identity, and belonging shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Drawing on personal narratives, observations, and social encounters, his work explores where individual and collective experiences meet, diverge, and overlap, blurring the boundaries between the private and the public.

Working across photography, text, moving image, and everyday objects, Ohiri appropriates and recontextualises materials to challenge established narratives and open up new ways of seeing. Through an approach that is both critical and playful, his practice transforms the everyday into sites of contemplation and reflection.

His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate Britain, Amos Rex, the Courtauld Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Finnish Museum of Photography. His work is held in public collections such as Arts Council England, Autograph ABP, the Wellcome Collection, and the Finnish Museum of Photography. Since relocating from the UK to Finland in 2023, his practice has increasingly engaged with migration, belonging, and cultural exchange, responding to the changing landscape of Finnish identity and culture.

Alongside his personal practice, Ohiri is the initiator of Lagos Studio Archives, an artist-led project established to safeguard photographic negatives from Lagos, Nigeria, endangered by the shift from analogue to digital photography. Since 2022, he has collaborated with artist Riikka Kassinen as co-guardian of the archive, reinterpreting and activating overlooked voices and narratives that have long been absent from contemporary photographic history.