Description:
The fastest growing cities in the world are on the African continent. By 2015 Lagos, Nigeria will become the worlds second largest city, smaller only than Tokyo. Urban Africa remains hidden in the blind spot of the West, obscured by larger more urgent issues like the Aids pandemic and persistent rural famine. These photographs from Lagos, Johannesburg, Lusaka and Addis Ababa present a glimpse into the unplanned settlements on the periphery of these cities - settlements that are cities in their own right but are characteristically unplanned and chaotic, often dwarfing the metropolis that spawned them.
Typically Seawrights works provide little context and avoid comfortable narrative. The photographs mimic our uneasiness with the subject of Africa or more generally the urban poor. They simultaneously describe in detail and refuse the kind of detailed description that often leads to clichéd and reductive editorial comment. As we move between anxious interiors and the perilous fringes of city landscapes, we repeatedly encounter an occluded frame reminiscent of Seawright’s Belfast, tense, troubled and stubbornly resistant to analysis.
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: FFotogallery
Condition: Very Good
Book Size: 24 x 37 cm
Pages: 112
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-872771-69-4
Description:
The fastest growing cities in the world are on the African continent. By 2015 Lagos, Nigeria will become the worlds second largest city, smaller only than Tokyo. Urban Africa remains hidden in the blind spot of the West, obscured by larger more urgent issues like the Aids pandemic and persistent rural famine. These photographs from Lagos, Johannesburg, Lusaka and Addis Ababa present a glimpse into the unplanned settlements on the periphery of these cities - settlements that are cities in their own right but are characteristically unplanned and chaotic, often dwarfing the metropolis that spawned them.
Typically Seawrights works provide little context and avoid comfortable narrative. The photographs mimic our uneasiness with the subject of Africa or more generally the urban poor. They simultaneously describe in detail and refuse the kind of detailed description that often leads to clichéd and reductive editorial comment. As we move between anxious interiors and the perilous fringes of city landscapes, we repeatedly encounter an occluded frame reminiscent of Seawright’s Belfast, tense, troubled and stubbornly resistant to analysis.
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: FFotogallery
Condition: Very Good
Book Size: 24 x 37 cm
Pages: 112
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-872771-69-4