Artists plan 5th edition road trip to Sarajevo

A group of African photographers, writers, video artists, art historians and performance artists known as The Invisible Borders has mapped out plans towards the fifth edition of their annual road trip project.

According to a release made available by the group, their 2014 road trip project would be the first Trans-Continental Road Trip of the collective and would be from Lagos (Nigeria) to Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) through 21 countries in Africa and Europe notably Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and eventually Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Interested applicants are expected to apply on or before November 10, 2013.

During the last four editions of the Road Trip, the group has explored African countries from the West to the East and Central Africa.

They said that “The impressions of the last four years have given rise to reflections and subsequent evolution of questions surrounding the complexness of borders. This year’s road trip is therefore an attempt to approach the core of what necessitates borders: Movement. In thinking of the Invisible Borders Trans-Continental Road Trip from Lagos to Sarajevo, The fundamental elements of the trip could be aligned in three deductions: Firstly, the endeavours of artists during the trip will be to reflect upon the contrast between preconceived notions and freshly acquired perceptions for every displacement through places and people. Sandwiched in between these two positions is the Invisible Borders.
 Secondly, new perceptions can only be acquired through a crossbreed of realities, which necessitates human interactions and exchanges on a constant basis during the trip.
 Thirdly, these interactions and exchanges will give rise to the form in which the final work of the artists manifests both in creation and presentation.
“The road trip project is an attempt to draw a tangible line of connection across chosen geographic locations in order to transcend the limitations proposed by the existing demarcating lines.
It will assemble artists from divers part of the African continent whose previous works are well rooted in the reality of the African continent. It will be made up of photographers, writers, video artists, art historians and performance artists. There will be ten participants in a whole. The journey will last 151 days (22 weeks) from June 2, to October 31, 2014. They will make stops of about five to seven days in major cities of these 21 countries,” they said.

Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographic Initiative is an art-led initiative, founded in Nigeria in 2009 by passionate Nigerian artists with a drive and urge to effect change in the society.

The mission of the Initiative is to tell Africa’s stories, by Africans, through photography and inspiring artistic interventions; to encourage exposure of upcoming African photographers towards art and photography as practiced in other parts of the continent; to establish a platform that encourages and embraces trans- African artistic relationships within the continent and to contribute towards the socio-political discourse shaping Africa of the 21st Century.