Barely two years in her photography career, Lilian Novo Isioro, is going places. Featured recently on Al-Jazeera Television combing three African countries with nine other artists on the ‘Invisible Borders’ trip, she tells Joe Agbro Jr. why she wants to photograph African market women
EXPERIENCES of a lifetime don’t come often. One of such came for photographer Lilian Novo Isioro in August 2012 when she joined nine other artists on a six-week expedition to do art along land routes from Lagos, Nigeria to Kinshasha, Congo. The itinerary was to travel to Calabar, enter Cameroun, Gabon, and finally Congo, all the while doing art. They only made it to Libreville, Gabon due to bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Recalling the major hiccup, Isioro said: “We experienced lots of delays and bad roads. You will discover there was so much chaos with our borders. There were times when we were delayed for one whole day, two whole days because we didn’t want to bribe. We didn’t want to pay these border people for us to pass. And we had all the papers. We had all the invites. So, the delays made us stop at Gabon, Libreville.”
The trip also opened her eyes to the horrible condition of the roads between Cameroun and Nigeria. Recalling a point in the trip, she said, “We were in the mud for three days.”
Nevertheless, for Isioro, the trip still remains indelible.
Invisible Borders was formed by photographer Emeka Okereke with the aim of exploring the diversity and unity amongst the people of the continent by featuring photographers, film-makers, and writers document their experiences on land travels across African countries. Speaking on the essence of travelling across Africa by land, Isioro said, “the whites have been writing our stories as blacks. Now, these people (Invisible Borders) came and said we want to rewrite our story, we want to tell our story by ourselves. We want to use our pictures to tell the story of Africa. And it was a good discovery for us.”
And being a professional photographer, she embarked on a photography project titled, ‘The corporate life of a market woman.’ On what informed it, Isioro said she was struck about the genesis of big institutions that had their roots from the market. She said, “Whatever trade we have today, it starts from the market.”
Hence, as the team reached cities such as Doula, Yaounde, and Libreville, it was the markets that Isioro sought out, to court the market women. According to her, “the real people that are supposed to be called the ‘corporate people’ are the ‘market people.’ And we don’t see their efforts as good enough. But, for me, maybe because I’m seeing things differently, from an artist’s angle, I see them as people that actually hold the economy.”
Speaking further, she said, “Women are dominant in the markets. I wanted to celebrate their efforts, celebrate their strength. When I was working in Cameroun and Gabon, I interviewed those women I worked with. I have pictures. Some of them have been there for years. One of them in Cameroun did a secretarial course and she said she had a choice. But she was making more money from the market. And she was finding more fulfilment from the market. And she sent her child to university from that same stuff. With all the enquiries I made, I just realised that our economy today lies on the shoulders of these market women.”
Isioro, a 2010 bi-lingual (French and English) executive secretarial administration graduate from the Yaba College of Technology also has a certificate in public relations as well. But she says her choice of a career in photography was ‘divine.’
“I had options to get a job,” she said. “I had fantastic offers but I saw a pamphlet to study photography in my church (Daystar). They do this free skill acquisition programme for two weeks where you can learn any course you want. I took photography. Afterwards, we were supposed to go to the school to pay. We were going to start another course (also photography). I did that for three months before I went for service (NYSC). So, during my service (in Anambra State), I was taking pictures here and there. And before I completed service, I knew this was what I wanted to do.”
To Isioro who covers social events like weddings and birthdays, Invisible Borders trip was a huge learning experience. “We see photographers as people that cover events in Nigeria but we don’t see photographers that know how to take art,” she said. “Art is quite different from event photography. There are different aspects, two different approaches, which I am now a master of.”
Doing a recap, Isioro said some parts of the Lagos – Libreville trip could be likened to ‘suffering’, “because at a time, you’ll ask yourself, is it really worth it?”
Obviously, it was, because, she said, “I think it was one of the best experiences of my life.”
And though the trip is over, Isioro is still interested in pursuing The corporate life of market women series. “I want to go to Ghana to continue the project,” she said, wearing a wistful look. “It’s like a project I want to do around African countries.”
