PAST
Till date, Emeka Okereke is the Founder and Artistic director of Invisible Borders trans-African Photography Project. An artists-led initiative founded in 2009, which reunites as many as 10 Nigerian photographers on a road-trip artistic intervention each year, departing from Lagos to other cities in the continent, on rented bus, creating works of artistic values consisting of photography, video and writing , but also networking with fellow artists and practitioners of art as well as the local people in the countries before the final destination. It takes on the model of Photography Without Borders whose aim is to promote artistic interaction and dialogue beyond restricting frontiers, to tell the story of these differences in order to conquer its deficiencies. They are also involved in exhibitions, conferences and talks across the continent and abroad. In 2009, they travelled from Lagos traversing about 5 countries on the way and arriving in Bamako, Mali with the Festival of Photography in Bamako being its high point. In 2010, ten of them journeyed over 6000 km from Lagos to Dakar and back, coinciding with the Dak'art Biennale taking place in Dakar. During the journey, they keep a real-time blog of the events and activities of the escapede as they unfold with daily images from the photographers and written materials from a writer also travelling with the group. For more information visit the blog: www.invisible-borders.blogspot.com and the website: www.invisible-borders.com
Portrait of IB 2011 Participant at the Millenium Monument in Ethiopia. IB 2011
NOV. - DEC. 2011: Invisible Borders Photographic Road Trip Project
Emeka Okereke, was the co-ordinator and artisitc director for the 3rd edition of the IB 2011. The project will take place from Nov.2 - Dec. 16, 2011. It will envolve 7 artists (from Nigeria and the rest from Ghana, Soudan and Ethiopia) travelling from Lagos to Addis Ababa by road, through 12000 km and spending 45 days on the journey photographing and networking with artists and indegenes of cities in their route. For more information bookmark this page: www.invisible-borders.com
Participants of Lagos-Paris Photo Exhange Project at the entrance of the National fine Art School of Paris. Dec. 2009
In 2008, Emeka Okereke initiated and coordinated Lagos-Paris Photo Exchange Project, the first ever two-way photography exchange between nine students from the National Fine Art School of Paris, France and ten participnts from the Lagos of which six of them were students from the photography department of the Yaba Collage of Technology in Lagos. In 2008, the students from Paris visited Lagos for three weeks where they produced photographic works and exhibition held at the Alliance Français Lagos. In November 2009, the Lagos participants visited Paris for two weeks during which they profited a great deal from the diverse art scene of Paris. In addition to Emeka Okereke, the project was equally overseen by lecturers of students from both schools. From the National Fine Art School of Paris it was the artist and photographer Patrick Tosani who also visted Lagos with the students. From Yabatech, the lecturer was Mr. Gboye Ogunojemite, who visted paris with the participants from Lagos.