The Quarter in Wedding, Berlin, is something of an anachronism, a city neighbourhood with street names still existing in a geopolitical time warp. Over a hundred years ago the idea of a successful circus and zoo entrepreneur was to establish an animal kingdom, a zoo, in the sand dunes just beyond the then historical city walls, including cages for human beings from the then German colonies.
The First World War and the concurrent industrially expanding Berlin put these plans to rest. The former sand dunes became a new residential area criss-crossed with streets named after African colonies, regions, provinces. The longest street, Afrikanische Straße, stretched diagonally through the neighbourhood in a south north direction. An underground station bore the same name.
The quarter drew me magnetically in. I began to regularly wander its many streets, take in its architecture, the carefully designated smallholder garden plots, its trees. Over the years more and more Africans and people of African descent have moved into the neighbourhood.
Years too of activism has seen some of the street names changed, from their original name bearers, men who had the heavy burden of inhuman acts, to names that acknowledge those who fought against such injustices.

1993 was my first ever visit to South Africa, a country only recently free of its Apartheid decades long regime. I flew into Johannesburg airport to be met by customs and arrival officials all still white, something up till then I had never experienced on arrival anywhere else in Africa. Once though out at the final destination of Durban, I experienced the full absurdity of the recent social political dispensation. The majority population were, are, Black. It was a time of euphoric renewal, of the possibility of coming together and building a much more stable, brighter future.
Together with a friend, we wanted to set up a cultural centre in one of the Townships of Durban, Claremont, a Township he had grown up in. Our venture was initially successful, the centre well received. Months later we were robbed of the many machines and equipment we had installed. A sign of the early difficulties that befell the new born nation.
Photographing in Durban, in the outlying Townships, was pure joy, despite the still palpable tensions from a time that once was. I meandered in white, Indian, Black neighbourhoods, acutely aware of the now invisible divisive lines, looking out at wary eyes, looking at the stranger taking in, listening in, photographing. The scars were still very fresh, awaiting a time to heal or weal into disfiguring lines.

Cities, megacities, cities with over twenty million inhabitants are almost impossible to describe, circumnavigate, wander. They overwhelm you, swallow you up in a labyrinth of unimaginable dimensions. You think you can start out, go down this particular street, meander and stroll along the broadwalk, and suddenly you find yourself lost, immersed in a complex of highways and byways, passages, streets, avenues, sidewalks, lanes, no-go areas, cul-de-sacs, shopping malls, small urban parks, bridges over railway tracks, under passageways, overheads, out into the suburbs, to the edges of the city, and still you are lost, disorientated, filled with anxiety. Angst. You wonder as you wander.
This all started in childhood, the urge to go beyond the next curve along the pathway, to discover, uncover. We grew up in an elite neighbourhood of Lagos, Ikoyi, and even then I always wondered what was beyond the carefully gardened colonial houses, quiet, almost stately, built to house the British colonials and the few privileged Nigerians.
Years later I literally attacked the now rapidly expanding, exploding metropolis. I wandered anywhere and everywhere, eager to see, to take, make, that image that said it all, that lamented and sung refrains, that screeched and drummed out loud the intensity, the humidity of it all. All roads stretching out into interminable distances, reaching out of late to far away other cites and towns. Shagamu, Ibadan, Ijebu Ode, Epe.
I too wonder as I wander. Thank you Langston Hughes.

To understand a city, her ideology, her religion, is an essential aspect. The religions long before monotheism are often the underlying foundations of many modern day megalopolis. I long to expand my knowledge of these religions, go in-depth into them, take part in ceremonies, festivals. Despite the strong presence of Islam and Christianity in Nigeria, the religions of the various peoples prior to the monotheistic incursions are still very much alive and in many cases still practiced by adherents.
In Yorubaland in south-west Nigeria and south-east Benin Republic, Voudoun, Isese, with her pantheon of many deities is still avidly practiced, oftentimes by adherents, who at the same time worship in mosques or churches. This is essential indigenous knowledge, the worship of elemental powers and beings, the use of herbal and plant remedies, the fine resonance of chants and deeply embedded configurations.

In the eighties of the last century, Lagos was a burgeoning, crazily, constantly expanding city. I attempted to wander, to meander its throughways and often met with aggression, loud voices shouting abuse, expressing their anger at photographs being taken at their expense. I tried to explain, to ignore, to meander past, but so very often the aggression just increased. I would then take public transport to Bar Beach and continue with my wandering there.
I knew the Beach since my childhood, had seen its gradual demise due to sea encroachment, the powerful Atlantic constantly eating away at the shoreline and depositing the fine sand further down the coast. The Bar was an attempt to stop this encroachment, hence the name Bar Beach. It was also one of the few places in the city where one could photograph freely. Visitors loved to have their portraits taken, the sea, the Atlantic, a powerful background palette.
The images are ongoing, an attempt to dig deeper into Macbeth’s quandary of never. He rebuked the impossibility of the woods coming closer, of the prophecy of the three Witches. Today we see, hear of the sea drying up, the plastification of our watery envelope.

Photography is a powerful conundrum. What exactly is it? Portraiture, landscapes, reportage, still life, document, artwork … All of these, none of them. Just a fleeting fragment that gradually, ever so slowly decomposes, fades, or languishes in museum archives. The self-portrait one very acute aspect, the cliché selfie, hence the popularity of photo booths, or of late, mobile phone selfies. The fascination of the so often close proximity of tobacco, chewing gum and condom automats, consumerism to the subtlest degree, the gradual automatism of daily life. The disappearance of telephone booths, of bus conductors, of airport ground staff. The frightening increase in apps, in automated voice responses, in screen time. The configurations are seemingly endless, spill out onto the playing fields of our subconscious. I stand still staring at the screen, wondering which way to go, which app to next tap, when next to breathe. I do though continue to passionately photograph.