ktravula – a travelogue!

Interview with Yagazie Emezi

I caught up with Yagazie Emezi a while ago for a short conversation on her work and on the current Invisible Borders road trip. Here’s an excerpt:

You have spoken before about your interest in documenting physical scars on stranger’s bodies. What informs this interest? And what have you found?

For a while now, I have had a passion for body positivity and awareness, some of my videos address just that. Over the years, I have received numerous messages from people struggling to accept their bodies in various forms. I decided to embark on this project to find individuals who have come to terms with their bodies after going through extreme life changes and understanding their process so as to hopefully aid others still struggling to do so. I have found out so far, body acceptance is a continuous process. Just like we never stop learning in life, do we ever stop learning to accept ourselves through all our changes? Most of the people I have met yes, have accepted their bodies but it appears to be more of a resignation to their bodies.

Read the full interview on Brittle Paper.

Interview with Yagazie Emezi was published on May 29th, 2016, with the tags , , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Partnership With Invisible Borders

Today, I’m glad to report to you on a collaboration with the guys at Invisible Borders Project. For the next few months, this blog will bring to you news, interviews, blog posts, and reportage from this beautiful travel project of the Invisible Borders: The TransAfrican Project. For those not familiar with them, for a couple of years now, this small organisation has organised trips across long distances, taking along writers, photographers, and other artists to document the human, social, literary, and cultural landscapes from one point to another, giving the reader a chance to journey across spaces they’d never otherwise traverse through the eyes and thoughts of the travellers.

This time, they would be travelling across Nigeria! (Read more about the 2016 trip here). Nigeria

Hear more: “In a period of accumulating upheaval across Nigeria—the recurring threats of Boko Haram fundamentalists in the northeast, and pro-Biafra agitations in the southeast—a trans-Nigerian road trip will elucidate the ambiguities of contemporary Nigerian existence. The Nigerian experience we seek to question is contemporaneous and global. In the absurdity of their rhetoric and the severe consequences of their violence, Boko Haram and the Islamic State are products of artificially constructed maps and policies – an indictment of the colonial project so to speak.” (See the map of the trip around Nigeria here).

KEY FEATURES OF THE PROJECT: 

  • A Team of 10 participants – 8 artists (4 photographers, 2 film makers, 2 writers) and two administrators (a driver and a project manager)
  • participants will travel together in a van, all the while, living, working and interacting with each other.
  • Participants are expected to develop concrete bodies of work in the form of photography, short films, and essays.
  • Outcomes and experiences of the project will be shared online, on a daily basis via a dedicated blog/app. See example from our 2014 Road Trip:http://app.invisible-borders.com/.
  • A Book articulating the photographic works as well as essays shall be published at the end of the project in conjunction with a feature-length documentary film.
  • The duration of the project is 46 days from May 12 – June 26, 2016.

The participants in the trip are Zaynab Odunsi (photographer), Emmanuel Iduma (writer), Eloghosa Osunde (photographer/writer), Yagazie Emezi (photographer), Yinka Elujoba (writer), Uche Okonkwo (writer), Emeka Okereke (Filmmaker/ photographer), Innocent Ekejiuba (Project Manager), and Ellen Kondowe (Head of Communications). You can read more in-depth profile of them here.

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At KTravula.com, we will follow the trip, serving interviews, photos, thoughts, blog posts, and other artistic input from participants of the project. All these will come along with the usual posts from guest posters, and other updates from my pedestrian trips around Lagos and its environs. Keep a date.

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Partnership With Invisible Borders was published on April 22nd, 2016, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , under the adventures, Travelling category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.