Cristina de Middel: ‘This Is What Hatred Did’ – The Nigerian Escapade

Cristina de Middel is a Spanish documentary photographer and artist living and working in Uruapan, Mexico. De Middel self-published The Afronauts in 2012, a photobook about the short-lived Zambian space program in Southern Africa. The book quickly sold out and the work was met with critical acclaim.

Nigeria – 

In the 1960s, a five-year-old Nigerian child’s village was attacked by soldiers. His mother had left him home alone and he had to run away, escaping the bombs and the fire. He saved his life entering the Bush, this magical territory where no humans are allowed and where all the Yoruba spirits live and fight. Our kid spent thirty years lost in the Bush trying to find his way back home amongst the spirits and the dead. He got married two times, became a king, a god, a slave, a cow, a jar, a horse, and a goat. He ate gold, silver and bronze, snakes and snails. He fought two wars and was sentenced to death half a dozen times… all that in just one hundred pages.

Amos Tutuola wrote My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in 1964 and then had to leave the country to escape the violent reactions to a book that would open in exile a new path for contemporary African narratives. The story is told by the five year old child in a very basic, direct, naive and repetitive style that only children master, but it manages to convey the magical and absurd reality that war and religion added to the Nigerian experience.

In her latest series This is What Hatred Did (the mysterious last sentence of the book), Middel aims to provide an illustrated contemporary version of this story, adapting the characters, space and the ambient to the actual situation of the country. The Bush is now the Lagosian neighborhood of Makoko, a floating slum with its own rules, commanded by kings and community leaders. It is a place where no logic seems to prevail and that is equally forbidden for those who do not belong. With the conviction that contemporary issues should be described in a way that includes the ancient traditions, perspectives, fears and hopes, this series documents the enhanced reality of one of the most iconic places in Nigeria, according to the always dramatic media.


Written & Photography by Cristina de Middel 

Related Posts

Rafal Milach: The Winners

Belarus –  ‘The Winners’ published by GOST, is dedicated to winners of various state and local competitions held between 2010-2013 …

Road of love – Mansoreh Motamedi

Iran – The seven-year Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) killed thousands of Iranians. Many bodies of the martyrs back. But it still has …

James Wellford : The Death of Newsweek

U.S.A. – As part of Emaho’s media partnership with Cortona On the Move – Photography in Travel (until September 29th, …

Andrew Miksys: DISKO

Lithuania – For ten years Andrew Miksys traveled the back roads of Lithuania photographing teenagers in village discos. Most of …

Veronica Fieiras: The Disappeared

Spain – Photography will never be able to run away from the memory’s territory and its stigma This is an …

Intifada in Kashmir : Sami Siva

India – At the time of partition in 1947, the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh was forced to seek India’s …

Ken Schles Invisible City

Ken Schles: “Invisible City” – Portrait of 1980’s Downtown New York

USA –  New York has always been the city of ultimate extremes, extremes in terms of social classes, races, wealth, …

Tanya Habjouqa: Occupied Pleasures of Palestine

Palestine –   Occupied Pleasures, from Gaza and across the Occupied Territories, was taken just last summer. It explored how …

Thomas Mailaender: “Illustrated People” – 23 Original Negatives, Powerful UV Lamp and Painful-Looking Skin-Based Photos

France –  “Illustrated People” is the translation into book form of a performance by Thomas Mailaender. He applied to the …