There is so much knowledge and wisdom embedded in the unknown. Thus, when one says, “I do not know” it does not always mean one is not wise. Quite the contrary. The unknown is a headroom. The ever sprawling horizon. It is an ordered hierarchy that discreetly and patiently hold the missing pieces of our logic, waiting for us to weave our way to it.
Yesterday, it rained and somewhat doused the sunniness of the city. Yet, it rendered the coal-tarred roads, streets, and pavement glasslike and reflective — like a mirage. There is something about the earth-colour aesthetic prevalent in the city. It lends warmth and cosiness even to a gloomy atmosphere. In the sun’s absence, the sky acts like a giant softbox, the rain a diffuser. Tungsten-lit stalls and shops come alive — like a film set. A framed iconic photo of Nina Simone is placed almost centre frame. I would wonder why it had to be so evident. I didn’t go into the shop to ask. But I allowed myself the thought that the story could be more intimate than meets the eye: “I had a chance encounter with Nina Simone, which changed my life”. You see, here in Barcelona, there is a veil over blackness. That much I have noticed since my arrival. Such a veil makes invisibility and hyper-visibility feel like two sides of the same coin. I still do not have enough appraisal of …
In beginning this reflection about the collective, I have, ringing at the back of my head, an Igbo saying: Igwe bụ ike which translates to “the collective is power”. This saying is in many ways fundamental to the social psychology of the Igbo people of Nigeria with whom I share a lineage. Elsewhere, Chinua Achebe, the acclaimed Nigerian novelist, and critic, referred to this as the Igbo’s preference for duality as opposed to singularity: “Wherever Something Stands, Something Else Will Stand Beside It”.1 Given that in many African cultures, the place of family and community is, in most cases, held in the highest regard, I can imagine this saying taking on different allegorical and idiomatic forms. Thus if art is to some tangible extent a mirroring of a people’s sociocultural contexts and realities, the notion of the collective as it relates to artistic practices from such places as Africa would be a given – a natural consequence of a way of being. Rightfully so, the collective from time immemorial has served to preserve something of the dignity …
“The danger of identifying with a stranger is the possibility of becoming a stranger. To lose one’s racialized rank is to lose one own valued and enshrined difference”. In my preoccupation with borders, movement and all the various forms of differences they presuppose, I have, more often than not, encountered the question: how can imagery (and by extension photography) play a useful role in the restitution of our world towards more conscious and correlational human relationships? As an attempt to reflect on this question, I would like to begin with the above-cited quote from Toni Morrison’s The Origin of Others. It would seem, at first glance, that it is a quote about reciprocity. Yes. There is that, yet it goes even further. It is a quote about affecting the gaze. Thus I would, for the purpose of my reflection, argue that everything begins with the gaze: affect the gaze and naturally, the effect reciprocates. In the language of the Igbo people of Nigeria (one that I speak as my mother’s tongue), the gaze is central …
DIARY OF A BORDER-BEING 