The city centre : an introduction to the video entitled "Mapping Accra"

Abstract

African urban dwellers have come to terms with density in a way that is not collective; giving rise to separate communities which are worlds on their own. Their residents living in a time scale of neither old nor new; neither their own nor someone else’s. In understanding this scenario, it is insightful to immerse ourselves in this grey space. I use this documentary on Accra to capture these spaces – traditional settlements hidden within Accra suburbia, rooms in uncompleted houses. It portrays life through the eyes of people who traverse in and out of these non-existent walls yet which exist as invisible fortresses to mainstream city dwellers.