Waiting. Rosso (border between Mauritania and Senegal)
INVISIBLE BORDERS The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project is an artist-led initiative and a non-profit founded by Okereke. The Trans-African Road Trip project is the heart of the organization and the core of its missions. A project where a collective of artists, amongst them photographers, videographers, and writers, join together to embark on a journey set in a van that will lead them across the African Continent, to explore, reflect and engage with the environment that surrounds them, and the people they encounter along the way. The project started in 2009, with the first road trip from Lagos to Bamako, in a black Volkswagen minibus. The use of various mediums is central to the project, as it aims to create a performative experience where the road path guides the project’s path. Okereke believes that the collaboration of mediums allows us to expand them greatly, and he believes that we need more writers to put photography into context, as these two types of art complement each other and allow the work to become performative.
of humanity. It’s not about how we do it or the scale of it; that’s only relative. It’s the consistency, the honesty of it. These things are powerful enough to change the course of humanity. It’s in this light that we look at such a project like the Trans-African Road Trip, knowing that this is a place where artists come, get nurtured, and then they carry this to the atmosphere of action and manifestation.” For each road trip, the team at Invisible Borders promotes an open call for artists, and lets talent find them. This is part of the essence of the organization, amplifying and elevating emerging local talent. Naturally, there are challenges that come with this type of project, where former strangers spend a lot of time together, sharing a different reality outside of their own contexts. Handling logistics, managing expectations, and dealing with different types of personalities, can be a challenging aspect of the work, but for Okereke, the sets of challenges presented are also what allows the project to be open to different possibilities.
The truth is, if you put a bunch of talented artists in a van, traveling the roads of different countries for a long period of time, you have a recipe for some pretty amazing things. There’s no need to plan a theme as this naturally unfolds. Okereke understood this early on, “I realized that all you have to do is get people on the road first, then everything else will happen. It’s a long body of work that has lasted for over 10 years now, where the theme can simply be what the road offers.” A simple concept with a powerful message. In his eyes, we are a manifestation of a changing world, a world that calls out for a planetary way of thinking, so for Okereke, the work naturally deals with the idea of movement. The idea of art becoming a bodily experience is a central part of the project, and Okereke embodies his work in a way that the borders between his personal life and his work blend as one. He reflects on the importance of the work developed, “I don’t do this just for the play of it; I really believe that it has the possibility of changing the course
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