This work is about the loss of fragility in the face of change; it is about what could have been, but never was; it is a bid at reconciling beauty and noise, both physically and metaphorically, as it is a search for silence. Most importantly, it is a melancholy reflection on a continent – Africa – that I have loved but no longer belong to, assuming I ever did.

Through an archeology of emotions, it is my attempt at finally being able to see a place I know and care for. Not the things they say are beautiful, but the silences and apparent emptiness that beg to be noticed. Photographs need to be transcended; ultimately, their subject must challenge viewers as to why one never considers beauty that only speaks in whispers. Or why the passage of time is a wonderfully privileged thing. Or why shadows and darkness are not necessarily ominous.

It is also my attempt at being a catalyst towards a different way of seeing the everyday. It asks viewers to observe, to ponder, to excavate a recess, to not exclusively belong to the way of seeing the world that we all are so familiar with. In the end, it wants to trigger not so much a conversation between the artist and the observer, as one between the observer and his own self, which often tries to bury many such hidden yet beautiful possibilities.

This project was shot in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Socotra, South Africa, Tanzania and Zanzibar, between 2020 and 2025. Soon to be released in a book form by Skeleton Key Press.