Topher Campbell is a filmmaker, artist and writer who has created a range of works in broadcasting, film, theatre, television and performance.
His works focus on issues of sexuality, masculinity, and the city, particularly in relation to race, human rights and climate change.
[3] As an adolescent, he participated in the "club kid" scene in London, Paris and New York City, and also worked as a model.
[6] Campbell has described himself as "acutely shy throughout [his] 20’s and into [his] 30's", which caused him to learn to establish himself as "commanding decisive and clear" in "professional settings".
[4] As an actor he has starred in Isaac Julien's Trussed,[7] Campbell X's Stud Life,[8] and Ian Poitier's Oh Happy Day.
At the age of 24, he participated in the Regional Theatre Young Directors Training Scheme, which led to his first film, The Homecoming (1995).
He described the process that led to the creation of the film:FETISH came about because I wanted to express more complex, nuanced and creative notions of my space in the world whilst also honouring the fallen.
Housed at the London Metropolitan Archives, Campbell and Ajamu X founded the archive to: collect, preserve, exhibit, and otherwise make available for the first time to the public historical, cultural, and artistic materials related to the Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in the United Kingdom.
[13]:282 He has also cited the influence of works by sci-fi authors such as Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler and Sheree Thomas.