The disparate nature of contemporary urban realities, shaped by migratory flows and the ongoing effects of globalisation, is at the heart of Emeka Ogboh's work.

What do we hear in this installation? A voice. Or rather the same voice divided in two, here and there. It speaks in numbers and names, in places that are everywhere, as if we were on a journey, in truth a journey of many. And yet nothing moves. As we move gently around the room, as we approach the boxes hanging like paintings on the walls, we realize that the voices are coming from there, that the black circles inside the yellow wooden boxes are loudspeakers, which we can see vibrating if we move a bit closer. Two lively, eloquent tableaux inhabited by a voice that travels from one place to another, crossing landscapes that we have to deduce from the names spoken.

On either side of the central circles, two parallel black lines divide the yellow wooden boxes in half. This is the distinguishing feature of the Danfo buses that run between Lagos, Nigeria’s capital and a megalopolis port. The voices are those of bus conductors calling out routes and stops. And we understand that these voices are our guide on this motionless journey. The names of the places being called out are the stages of the journey inside Lagos, their intertwined lines secretly mapping the city. For those from elsewhere, they are words in a foreign language, Yoruba, but if we linger long enough, the meaningless chain becomes a litany, an involuntary case of sound poetry – Bernard Heidsieck’s La Poinçonneuse suddenly comes to mind, and the stations of the Paris metro are superimposed on those of the Danfo buses.

Bastien Gallet, 2024