Invisible Borders: The Trans-African Project

Road Trip 2009

: Line-up | Uche James-Iroha |IB 2009

Inspired by the 8th edition of the Bamako Photography Encounters 2009, 10 Nigerians made up of photographers and writers made a road trip to Bamako from Lagos in a black Volkswagen Mini bus. This project arose as a result of an urgent need to address the notion of dividing borders between countries in the African continent. It might sound paradoxical that while travelling by air might seem a lot faster and much more stress-free, it indeed suggests a feeling of immense “distance” between places, given that one might call the singular borders suggested by the airport terminals as “virtual”, not tangible, providing a rather fictitious notion of displacement in real time; more so due to the absence of land scapes and other elements which serves as visual testimony to distance covered. Therefore this project is an attempt to acquire a much realistic sense of the similarities and difference between peoples suggested by cultural and geographical lines. _____________________________________