What We Leave Behind

What We Leave Behind is a photography exhibition created by NC State University graduate student, communication scholar and photographer, Oluwasola Israel Abimbola. This exhibition explores the visual and environmental legacy of plastics in contemporary life through a series of portraits and constructed scenes, juxtaposing plastic and nature within and around the human body in paradoxical ways.

A passionate environmental sustainability scholar, Abimbola draws from scholarship in visual rhetoric and environmental sustainability to develop photographic images that lead viewers to reflect on their relationship with everyday materials and the environmental consequences of thoughtless modern consumption. It presents plastic not only as waste, but as a lasting imprint of human behavior, an enduring record of what we consume, how we live, and what we leave behind for future generations. 

About the Artist

Oluwasola Israel Abimbola is a Nigerian photographer, visual storyteller, and communication scholar based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a master's degree student in Communication at NC State University, where his work bridges visual rhetoric, environmental communication, and sustainable fashion. Across both his academic research and creative practice, he is interested in how images shape public meaning, memory, and understanding in an increasingly image-saturated world. Abimbola merges scholarship with artistic practice thereby presenting photography as a catalyst for environmental awareness, cultural memory, and imaginative possibility.