Photographs

A window clock watch in Dakar station - From Senegal to Mali by train

Sleeping in the second class - From Senegal to Mali by train

Baobab trees through the train window - From Senegal to Mali by train

Senegal river, the natural border between Senegal and Mali - From Senegal to Mali by train

Dakar Station - From Senegal to Mali by train

Second class sleeper coach - From Senegal to Mali by train

The restaurant coach - From Senegal to Mali by train

A family eating from the same plate in third class - From Senegal to Mali by train

Emigrates waiting to be collected for job opportunities in Bamako station - From Senegal to Mali by train

Begging along the way - From Senegal to Mali by train

Bamako station - From Senegal to Mali by train

Africa Express 2

The Dakar-Bamako Express train connects Dakar (Senegal) to Bamako (Mali), along 1200 km, carrying mainly emigrates who are traveling towards Europe, in search of a better life. The train and railways were made by the French colonists, during the sixties. The journey lasts around 50 hours.
This story is the second part of a long-term project, which will be published in a book in 2009 by Postcart Editions.

Africa Express represents a long passage of hope, aboard daily trains that run back and forth between the beginnings and ends of individual and collective journeys.
During the last twenty years the undercover migratory flux from Africa towards the European coasts has become endless and has reached such proportions, that the countries of the industrialized world are today trying to limit the worrying phenomena. African migration towards Europe represents only a part of a much larger phenomena that covers the entire continent.
Due to ancestral traditions and modern day necessity the African populations give part of their livelihood to these internal migratory movements : each day millions move from one city to another, from one region to another or even from one country to another.
For Africans, migration represents a vital need for knowledge, discovery, exchange and opportunity that translates into “hope” for a better life.
For these reasons, in time, some African locations, cities, villages or just simple geographic sites, have been transformed into stops along the journey of hope. Right or wrong, these places today represent a compulsory point of passage or a definite destination point.
The railway, once an instrument of exploitation used by the whites on the indigenous population, has now been transformed into a major opportunity and an expression of liberty for the local population. In Africa the trains are not only a means of transport for people, animals and things but they are also the setting for human needs and the exchange of knowledge, information and experiences.
Therefore the train as a means of transport becomes place. A place that produces a dilation in time that in turn slows movement to an endlessness in space, because the final destination is an abstract concept, distant like infinity. The trip is measured metre after metre, difficulty after difficulty, thought after thought.
The train therefore, metaphorically becomes a resource used to arrive at a collective betterment, but also to gain individual freedom that will in turn satisfy an always increasing and urgent desire for emancipation.