"When the land was turned

into a science of nature

and nature turned into a place,

an emptiness to be filled

with objects and things

grew across the landscaped space.

That emptiness meant

to present and to polish

the image of the untouched,

to frame onto nature a meaninglessness
and preserve what was already lost."

Dior Thiam, The Myth of Emptiness

Original photographs first published in: “Die Deutschen Kolonien”, Carl Weller Verlag für Farbfotografie, 1910 Berlin.

2022, in: A Different Now Is Close Enough Io Exhale On You, Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung