Category: projects
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The political and the personal
I recently spent time in Togo, in its coastal capital, Lomé, where I had the privilege of speaking with/listening to 23 everyday women over 60 whose lives have been irrevocably impacted by the vicissitudes of the country’s postcolonial politics. Since Togo’s independence from France in 1960 (it was previously colonised by Germany and then partitioned…
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In Communion With Madame Jobe
My professional highlight of 2023 was spending five weeks in The Gambia travelling along the Atlantic coast interviewing women aged over 60 about their lives. This fieldwork was part of my research for my National Geographic Society-supported project, A Women’s Oral History of West Africa. Of the 27 elders I had the privilege to commune…
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To Go or Not, Togo?
At less than 40 miles and just over an hour by road, the distance between Grand-Popo and Lomé is so short, it’s possible to live in the quiet Beninese fishing town and work in the bustling Togolese metropolis, as thousands do everyday, traversing the border. Yet the process of crossing the frontier, of leaving Benin…
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Lessons from 2022 (Part 1)
As I look back over the past 12 months, two milestones, in particular, stand out. The first is the completion of the mudLIBRARY, a newly-built eco-library constructed entirely from sustainable materials, a collaboration between ArchiFair, an Austrian architectural NGO, Hive Earth, a Ghanaian rammed earth construction company, and the Library Of Africa and The African…
Sylvia Arthur 