INVISIBLE BORDERS
Counter-Atlas of the Road
Marrakesh → Lagos · 2026
INVISIBLE
BORDERS
COUNTER-ATLAS · MRK – LOS · EST. 2026
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Field atlas
Estimated route mapmap
Eighteen estimated stops, nine countries, Marrakesh to Lagos.
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Live progress and published dispatches, for anyone following the road.
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Live air quality, dust, UV, daylight, moon and country facts per chapter.
Welcomestart
What this prototype is and how to use it.
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Daily observations, refusals and corrections.
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Photographs, sound recordings and route fragments.
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Draft writing from the road.
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Published photographs from the route.
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Field dispatches and road writing.
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Voice recordings and ambient field audio.
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Brief
Premise and intent of the Counter-Atlas.
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Capture, counter-cartography, care, listening, assembly.
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Vocabulary, sources and field rules.
Route chapters
Morocco
01Marrakesh02Essaouira03Agadir04Tan-Tan05Laayoune06Dakhla
Mauritania
07Nouadhibou08Nouakchott
Senegal
09Saint-Louis10Dakar11Tambacounda
Mali
12Bamako
Burkina Faso
13Ouagadougou
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14Kumasi15Accra
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Benin
17Cotonou
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18Lagos
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Gerardo Ezequiel
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Chapter 12 · Mali

12
IMAGE→LINEAGE

Bamako

(Niger river, Grand Marché, studios)

7 NovMali · after the Kéniéba crossinglive

A city of studios on the Niger. What does it teach the passing camera?

For whom? · By whom? · Under what care?

Field conditions · liveFull reading →

Reading conditions…

Capture · By whom?

Record one fragment that answers a local image practice rather than overwriting it.

Sound note · 15 s

Record one fragment that answers a local image practice rather than overwriting it.

Sign in to contribute

The ◉ photo button records a fragment. Voice and note record the field decision around it.

What kind of trace is this? · 0 answers
anonymous

Tap the reading that matches this chapter. The thermometer shows how different field lenses read the route.

PhotoWritingFilmResearchPublic artTransdisciplinary

Provocation

What can a passing archive learn from a city that taught the world how to be photographed?

Field log

Note one thing Bamako's own image culture does that the passing camera should learn from.

Route scaffolds: images and sound seeds↓

These are route scaffolds, not confirmed stops. Each point holds a Wikimedia image slot, a Freesound query and a blog prompt so the road can replace the estimate with lived material.

Read the field method↓
Status
Estimated stop
Country
Mali
Leg
600 km, incl. border
Practice
Studio + river

River capital

CROSSINGSports, roads, borders, coastal urban systemsLayer relation onto the corridor

The Niger, the market and the studio city

Bamako spans the Niger River and carries a deep photographic and musical heritage. The estimated stop reads the river crossings, the Grand Marché and the city's studio culture as a meeting of water, trade and image-making.

What success looks like

A strong fragment engages Bamako's own image traditions rather than importing a generic gaze.

For whom?

Whose visual tradition is this, and how can the archive honour it?

By whom?

Record one fragment that answers a local image practice rather than overwriting it.

“Some cities have already authored their own image.”
Counter-Atlas note
“Learn the local grammar before adding to it.”
Field rule · this prototype