Invisible Borders in Cologne, Germany: A Volatile Negotiation Between the Past and Present
Invisible Borders will be showing at the 2019 africologneFestival Köln. Works made during the 2018 Lagos to Maputo Trans-African Road Trip by Emeka Okereke, Tope Adégokè, Kosisochukwu Ugwuede and Kenechukwu Nwatu will be exhibited as a triptych of writings, film and photographs. Also, three new chapbooks, a publication of Invisible Borders, of writings and photographs from the road trip will be launched and made available to the public as part of the exhibition.
The exhibition takes the form of a work-in-progress, an excerpt, of a road trip that is heavily informed by two phrases drawn from its conceptual premise: “a journey through volatile negotiations between the past and present”, and “‘I am where I think”. The former speaks to the nature of the trajectory and the kinopolitics (socio-politics of movement) within countries and borders that constitute the route. The latter is a decolonial position on which the intentions of the project are firmly grounded, as Walter D. Mignolo puts it, “epistemic affirmations [knowledge(s)] that have been disavowed.” The exhibition is in essence a testament to the body as an entity imbued with intuition, memory, language from which subjectivity is inferred. The exhibition will also mirror the ever-present yet ephemeral nature of the road – how the artists employ body and presence in the negotiation of artificially imposed borders.
The exhibition opens on June 21st by 6pm at the Alte Feuerwache Hall and will run from 4-8pm every day from June 22nd – 30th. If you are in or around Cologne, be sure to come through to see the exhibition. Additionally, join us on June 27th, by 8pm for a discussion session also happening at the Alte Feuerwache Hall.
