Intimate Strangers: A Response to Dawit L. Petros and Emmanuel Iduma's conversation at H&R Block Artspace
Julia Monte expands on the idea of being a stranger in her response to Retros' & Iduma's convo at H&R Block Artspace
At H&R Block Artspace, Dawit L. Petros’ The Stranger’s Notebook, brings a conversation that asks what it means to be a stranger to other people, places and archives. The exhibition consists of photographic, video, and sound based works that documents Petros’ 13 month journey through Africa and Europe: from Lagos, Nigeria to Amsterdam and then to Italy and Morocco. It provokes an…
Borders Within 2016: The trans-Nigerian road trip In 2016, Invisible Borders will aim to map this diversity through a road trip across Nigeria; hoping, as a result, to underscore the borders that are both inscribed and elusive within the country.
Phenomenological implications of art and collective practice with specific reference to the shared experience of art and the trans african project:
A Trans-African Worldspace by Emmanuel Iduma 2015 :
“The work of Invisible Borders since inception has appropriated ordinariness quite differently. Artists and writers who have travelled as part of the project did not insist on showing everyday spaces—like markets, streets, restaurants, roads, and malls—as places in need of repair or development. But as places where life occurs without judgment, with mirth, theatricality, and beauty. This approach has not lessened the severity of the continent’s contradictions.”
Invisible Borders Update April 2016:
Borders Within 2016: Help us in your City or Region
10 April 2016 | by Emeka Okereke
From May 12 to June 26, 2016 we shall embark on a Road Trip across 14 states in all regions of Nigeria on the “Borders Within Trans-Nigerian Road Trip Project".Our aim is first, to discover our own country and through our encounters and experiences create works that encourage conversations about our differences, similarities and hoping, as a result, to underscore the borders that are both inscribed and elusive within the country. The artists – employing a subjective gaze – will focus primarily on reflecting the voices of individuals – the average Nigerians…”
“mapping diversity across regions, states & ethnic formations in Post-Colonial Nigeria”
In the same way that in order to sustain a phenomenological outlook there has to be an attitude adopted where you leave behind judgements and opinion in order to map out the web of relations between people and how we experience things in the world.
In this case the project leaders are aiming to mapping encounters / experiences. Employing particular self awareness. Building ongoing projects movement and momentum.
Slopes can be good for building mo men tum. It’s not all bad.
project first found when browsing [07.02.16] Aeneas wilder’s website ahead of a speakers programme talk [which I did not attend]; in a write up of 56th Venice Biennale 2015:
“If there is any one stand out work that I should pick from the Arsenale it would be the artists collective Invisible Borders presentation A Trans-African Worldspace. The exhibition included contributions from Ala Kheir, Amaize Ojeikere, Charles Okereke , Emeka Okereke, Emmanuel Iduma, Jide Odukoya, Jumoke Sanwo, Lillian Novo Isioro, Lucy Azubuike, Ray Daniels Okeugo, Teresa Menka, Tom Saater, Uche Okpa-Iroha, Venessa Peterson.”
Invisible Borders [The Trans-African] project 2009- ongoing re: movement amongst people, across identity, how we connect with things we have no tacit knowledge/previous experience of:
“EO: Exactly, because we hope to explore the idea of a parenthesis that becomes possible as a result of estrangement. We want to touch on the makings of this parenthesis with hopes of not being too prosaic but rather nuanced enough to evoke sensibilities, which would lead to open-ended conversations.”
“EI: I recall that we began to speak about parenthesis in relation to the people who are waiting, almost interminably, and desolately, for the opportunity to cross the sea. And we were interested in what happens in that time of waiting. How have you managed to take photographs based on this?”
Emeka Okereke
“The image “Under Construction,” which I made somewhere in Yaba, Mainland Lagos, speaks very much to this thinking. First of all, it is an effort to implicate my own body and presence in the narrative. It is a performative image in the sense that the image-maker is not exempted from the vulnerabilities and eventualities of the actual image. But beyond that, there is a space similar to this parenthetic space, which exists in the distance between the camera (and we know the history of the role of the camera as an oppressor’s tool) and the image. The process of making the image is a daunting repetition of movements back and forth the camera and the image. At a point it becomes heavy and exhausting and almost self-tormenting.”
http://www.radioapartment22.com/spip.php?article193&var_recherche=emeke%20okereke
Investigations into sharing and silence : archiving identity, sharing identity, situated identity, milieu.
Emmanuel Iduma - Face in the archive
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“I seek to situate myself in that history when I look at the photographs a century later. To situate myself, I deal contemporaneously with the archive, and treat history with conceit and imagination. My prejudice is to reflect on images of a colonial past and how they foretold this moment when the task of decolonization isn’t quite done.”
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“I imagine that the boys, while being photographed, contemplated the unfamiliar camera. How did they consider the equipment? As a box-like mirror whose meaning and use eluded them?”
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“Supposing they knew what the camera was, that it made pictorial records of their habits and customs, it is unlikely that they saw a copy of the photograph. How they considered themselves mattered little to the state for whom the photographer worked. They were subject to a Eurocentric interpretation of their identity and image.”
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“My relationship with their image cannot escape the possibility that they didn’t see it, or the fact that I project my biases toward their faces, unaware of their thoughts. Yet I must surpass those limitations. The ultimate aim of considering their image is to establish kinship. In looking at them, declaring that I am their progeny, I affirm our shared struggle to repossess our identity from the violence of colonialism.”
Iduma’s words are a catalyst for affective experience* through writing and art.
and as opposed to previously written re: Carsten Höller’s “The Double Club”
Sharing &/is caring? Not caring &/is sharing.
re: affective experience “sentimentally commanded encounter”
according to a source in the library’s copy of the Double Club, the "most important achievement of The Double Club; taking Art outside its usual context and turning it into a real life experience."
my response to that is who’s real life experience are they talking about?
what happens when you sharing something, the need to share something that is not even yours is it all a question of question begging?
…appropriating food, drink, bar design, clientele
phenomenolizing cultures and eachother. Slippery Slope
À la Biennale de Venise, des artistes africains sur les routes du continent
See on Scoop.it - Art africain contemporain
C’est le fruit d’un road-trip artistique chez son voisin méconnu, et bien au-delà. Une épopée routière à travers le continent africain, la traversée parfois épique de frontières terrestres, et surtout des rencontres, des échanges dans des langues inconnues. A bord, la création jaillit au fil des kilomètres.
Déployé dans un angle mort de la Biennale d’art contemporain de Venise, tout au bout de l’Arsenal, Invisible Borders, the Trans African Project est l’un des projets artistiques les plus pertinents, à l’heure où la question des migrants agite l’opinion internationale.
Fondée en 2009 par l’artiste nigérian Emeka Orekeke, cette plate-forme résulte d’un constat : les artistes africains ignorent tout des pays voisins, ils circulent peu au sein du continent. Rien de plus éloigné aux yeux d’un Ivoirien que l’actualité soudanaise, rien de moins familier pour un Gabonais que la vie quotidienne d’un Malgache. « Nous avons tendance à dépendre des médias étrangers pour savoir ce qui se passe dans le pays d’à côté. Nous ne racontons pas nos propres récits », déplore l’artiste nigériane Jumoke Sanwo.
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> Accédez à la suite de l'article de Roxana Azimi sur lemonde.fr en cliquant sur le titre ou sur http://lc.cx/ZzBh
I have been selected to show work from “Folkland” at the 56th Venice Biennale which opens on May 9th, 2015. My work will make up part of the Invisible Borders “A Trans-African Worldspace” installation, featuring image, text and film from their numerous photographic road trips across African countries. My time with Invisible Borders travelling through Ghana was intense yet cathartic. It’s such an honour to be able to show pretty personal work at such a huge event.
I will be posting photographs throughout the opening week and vernissage events leading up to the public opening / awards ceremony on my Instagram (@vanessapeterson).
Keep an eye out on the official IB Facebook event page for more information and updates over the next few days.
Lastly, this OkayAfrica article on 21 African artists to look out for at the Biennale is also worth reading.
