Seeing West Africa
CLOCK OF THE EARTH is the title of a forthcoming book in collaboration with photographer Frank Stewart and Africanist scholar/poet George Nelson Preston.
The project contemplates narratives of daily and spiritual life in west Africa via analog black and white photography and the art of poetry. The images were created between 1997–2005 in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal.
Clock of the Earth
When electricity was only lightning, when the banjo was only a stick and a broken gourd lying upside down in the bush the talking drum spoke when creator had made only the spirit of the drumwood tree, when the creator had made only the herald the talking drums were speaking and the drums said
kyere asase yaa kyere bosompo yen suro bibiaa koraa!
Except our Mother Earth, Except for the Spirit of the Waters there is nothing we fear!
Owkan twa esuo, esuo twa ‘okwan, opanyin na hene? Opanyin na hene?
The path crosses the stream, the stream crosses the path, which is the eldest? Who is the chieftain?
Odomankoma bo suo Onipa bo ‘kwan…
It was the Creator who [first] made the stream [and then] we humans cut the path the meet the stream…
— George Nelson Preston
From Agadiz to Tessalit Once Were We
The Imazighen ‘proud and free.’ No gold from the south, no salt of the erg, no cloth or guns or kettles from beyond went its way untinted by the blue of our hands before it solved the lust of Timbuktu or Gao.
And so our tolls increased the value of many things. What happened to all this bounty, our slaves and camels taken? Was it lost on concubines and false silk?
Now look at us. Our women work in cities. Our men sell things we fashion of leather and silver in Bamako, Niamey and Ouagadougou or sweep the sand off tarmac streets.
From Tangut to Aghadist to Timbuktu to Aire there was a time no gold of the south or salt of the north passed this way before given the greater value by our tolls.
Now look at us. The Blacks who once were our icklan tell us when to strike our tent poles and call us wakawaka. What does that mean? What of our fierce pride? Look into our eyes. No, don’t tell us we cannot wander from here to there.
And so we heard the Germans make a car and name it Tuareg. This gives no comfort to us who once touched all that passed this way.
Once were we the Imazighen, proud and free.
— George Nelson Preston
There is Only One Adze
and that is The Original. We carry the shade of the first adze of Dyo. The tongue that spat the first Word, the tooth that carved the first man/woman. In the beginning
when Dyo was only a dream in Its’ own head, there was the Original Hoe that bit the earth into corn rows and whiskers of millet.
Dyo has given us the light to see the shades we wear. Without these hoes there is no grass and without grass there is no life. Dyo is not a man, not a woman, but Dyo is in them. Sometimes—
Dyo speaks. The sound of springs are his echo or the iris of a mask. Those are the times when Dyo gives us the light— to see yourself! In the first spark struck by the original hoe. In that flash we see we were never made by Dyo.
We are only a dream in the eternal sleep of Dyo.
— George Nelson Preston
One Day, I Go
for Italy. I go downfield. One day, I go for French side. I go killum. Dey go die proper one day. I go for World Cup.
One day, I go for Rio. Brazil people go die – dey go die proper.
I be striker. I be striker passall. All world people dey go die. Dey do die
for Mother Africa.
— George Nelson Preston