INVISIBLE BORDERS
Counter-Atlas of the Road
Marrakesh → Lagos · 2026
INVISIBLE
BORDERS
COUNTER-ATLAS · MRK – LOS · EST. 2026
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INVISIBLE BORDERSCOUNTER-ATLAS · NAVIGATION
Field atlas
Estimated route mapmap
Eighteen estimated stops, nine countries, Marrakesh to Lagos.
Follow the roadlive
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.
Field lognotes
Daily observations, refusals and corrections.
Media atlassound
Photographs, sound recordings and route fragments.
Road essaysdrafts
Draft writing from the road.
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Published photographs from the route.
Blogwords
Field dispatches and road writing.
Listeningaudio
Voice recordings and ambient field audio.
Method
Brief
Premise and intent of the Counter-Atlas.
Five registers
Capture, counter-cartography, care, listening, assembly.
Lineage
A genealogy of counter-cartographic practice.
Method and reading
Vocabulary, sources and field rules.
Route chapters
Morocco
01Marrakesh02Essaouira03Agadir04Tan-Tan05Laayoune06Dakhla
Mauritania
07Nouadhibou08Nouakchott
Senegal
09Saint-Louis10Dakar11Tambacounda
Mali
12Bamako
Burkina Faso
13Ouagadougou
Ghana
14Kumasi15Accra
Togo
16Lomé
Benin
17Cotonou
Nigeria
18Lagos
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Gerardo Ezequiel
Spatial data, sustainability, cartography.
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Chapter 05 · Morocco

05
ADMINISTRATION→RESTRAINT

Laayoune

(Contested city, checkpoints, wind)

18 OctWestern Sahara · administered by Moroccoanchor

A contested city. What does responsible documentation refuse?

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

Field conditions · liveFull reading →

Reading conditions…

Capture · By whom?

Name what you chose not to record, and why the choice is the record.

Sound note · 15 s

Name what you chose not to record, and why the choice is the record.

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 be documented here without speaking for anyone?

Field log

Write one observation and one explicit refusal, naming what should not be recorded in a contested place.

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.

Wikimedia slot

Query ready: Lagos Nigeria. The live API route can replace this placeholder with a Commons image and attribution.

Milestone 31 · Chapter 05

Lagos

Nigeria · 26 Nov 2026

official endpoint

Arrival is an edit, not a closure. Ask what public visibility owes back to the people and places it has carried.

Care note

Keep names, faces and voices private unless consent, context and a reason to publish are all clear.

Freesound API seed
Lagos street market traffic lagoon ambience
Read the field method↓
Status
Estimated stop
Country
Morocco
Leg
320 km from Tan-Tan
Practice
Careful documentation

Contested ground

ASSEMBLYfragments, consent, return, public formArrival is an edit, not an ending

Administration, checkpoint and wind

Laayoune is the largest city in Western Sahara, a territory whose status is disputed. The estimated stop asks for particular care: checkpoints, administration and aid infrastructure are part of daily life, and the field note must avoid both spectacle and political ventriloquism.

What success looks like

A careful fragment documents conditions without claiming to resolve a contested history, and keeps people, documents and checkpoints private.

For whom?

Who is made visible or vulnerable by an image made here?

By whom?

Name what you chose not to record, and why the choice is the record.

“In contested ground, restraint is part of the record.”
Field rule · this prototype
“Document conditions, not verdicts.”
Counter-Atlas note