PALM PORTAL 2018-2019

    We live in a world where we are no longer constrained within the walls of our bodies, let alone the borders of our countries or continent. The digital age brought with it the online platform and on to it we extend ourselves, our awareness flows out of our minds and through rectangular portals, into a different dimension, leaving behind people standing or walking in awkward postures all around the city.

  The following images taken in the city of Nairobi seek to reflect on this situation in an urban African context where on one hand we are plugged in and able to conduct business, explore other countries and connect to our friends and family locally or in the diaspora but on the other hand we are disconnected from the immediate world around us. It is like looking at people having an out of body experience, zombified bodies left behind frozen, face down and arm up, their occupants momentarily shifted from a biomechanical container and into a digital one. This brings about the question of whether one day we will completely vacate the confines of our heads and move to the more spacious online platform. Or is it no longer a question of if but rather of how long the transition from one host to the other will take to complete? Would this bring an end to issues surrounding race, gender and borders? Or is it more of a cycle that our consciousness is going through, switching states along the way like water does from vapor to clouds to rain that falls and forms a river that eventually flows back to a lake, the sea or the ocean to start the process all over again?