“Absence, in the making of the photographs, seemed like a metaphor for presence, a way to affirm the continued relevance of the girls. By standing in place of portraits of the missing girls, the still life pictures of their possessions carry the same power of recognition that portraits would have carried.”
Emmanuel Iduma on the representation of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
“You allow me to glare into your eyes, with your hands steady on the table. You are calling for attention, not to your ego, but to your eyes, the window into your soul, as fractured as it is.”
Emmanuel Iduma speaks to Carrie Mae Weems.
The Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma talks about the novel ‘Double Negative’ of the South African writer Ivan Vladislavic. In that way he can analyze the difference between a novel and a photograph. “(…) a novel deals with the world in the form of a creative act of construction. Photographs deal with gaps in the known world. They seek out a balance between what is visible and what is not.”