Emeka Okereke

Emeka Okereke (born 1980) is a Nigerian photographer, filmmaker, writer and visual artist who lives and works in Lagos and Berlin. He is the cofounder of the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographers Organisation. In 2018, he received Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the Government of France. Quotes Each of our black realities are unique in their own right. The journey is not yet over, and we are far from arriving at a destination. The most urgent task at hand is the grounding of these fluid forms and diverse black realities. The forms these realities take are always sculpted by survival, resistance and the hope of transcending limitations. The black person suffers from projections which are not his or her own. We are not one because we have the same skin colour and texture. We are one because there is a history and trajectory to every form of our multifarious realities. Every person of black descent is an African. We can embrace the proactive possibilities inherent in our different forms of blackness. We must dig deeper for the buried treasure on which all tramples. A lot of people are waiting to be inspired; a lot of people are waiting to find something to get into. And this is what is beautiful now about Africa, when people see something like this, they immediately imagine themselves being able to do it as well. To make a road trip toward there and sort of try to touch that line between Africa and Europe. I believe so much in movement. Movement in the physical sense, movement in the metaphysical sense, so I am always moving; this is basically who I am. Artists we’re not road builders; we don’t build roads but we may as well build a trans-African highway of the mind. If there is anything like contemporary African art, it is those creations that are cognisant of this element of spontaneity and improvisation, which tends to work with, and draw from it the possibility of alternative forms and aesthetics. Being African is to blur the lines between possible and impossible rendering the very state of being indefinable. External links Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:Photographers from Nigeria Category:Artists from Nigeria Category:Film directors from South Africa