INTRODUCTION

We at IGVP want to highlight this noble photographic exhibit & visual peacemaking project by Luna Vives and photographer Javier Acebal—two recent additions to our Visual Peacemakers community. Their efforts show how two people with a passion to breakdown stereotypes can make a difference through the use images. Together they inspire us with their vision to display the beauty and dignity of Senegalese women. In this write-up Luna shares her thoughts on the project. If you’re in Spain or Italy, be sure to visit the exhibit.

Luna Vives

People make places. You can read all about a region in newspapers and watch all the documentaries that have been made about it, but it is not until you cram yourself onto a packed bus to go to work or sit down with a family for lunch that you learn what that place is about. And as you move beyond the images deeply engraved in your mind by mass media – picture after picture, story after story – chances are you will start to love the place. Because it is people who make places, and only they have the key to let you in.

That is what I felt when I arrived in Senegal. I went there to interview policy makers working on the field of border control and relatives of migrants who were living in Spain, mainly women. I had asked these women in Spain to tell me about their lives in Senegal. They would look at me, and after a few seconds of silence shake their heads with a smile, they would say: “You have to be there to understand it.” During one particular interview, while we were talking about how to solve some of the problems that migrants find when they arrive in Europe (racism, stereotypes, and bureaucracy, among others) a man shared an anecdote with me:

This Spanish friend asked if we had cars in Senegal. Jokingly, I said: but of course!! The difference is that, since we are so poor and have no shoes, the engine is made out of wood, and in steep slopes we push the car ourselves. She answered: “wow, that’s so sustainable!!” I couldn’t believe my ears, she thought I was serious!! And really, that’s our biggest problem: that in Africa we think that money grows from the trees in Europe, and in Europe you think that all Africans wear a loincloth and live in the jungle. We won’t be able to solve any problems until we sit down and learn about each other.

I’m convinced he was right. This is also what makes the IGVP project so interesting to me: it provides an alternative to traditional discourses about the “other” – those living in countries that we only learn about through the bad news.

This relationship through the media impacts both sides. Western media, movies and television provide glossy visions of “the good life” that shape the dreams of young people, men and women, in Senegal. On our side of the fence the same media represents Africa as a continent doomed and hopeless defined by extreme poverty and starvation, AIDS, Female Genital Mutilation, children of inflated bellies and enormous eyes, wilderness and death. Africa is still the Dark Continent, as unreal and beautiful as harsh and horrific; treated as a whole despite the immense cultural, geographical, social, linguistic, and economic diversity that it contains. Centuries have passed, and yet the image that the West has of that which lies South of the Sahara has changed little since the Johnsons released their documentaries in the 1930s.

The project that we are involved in, Women Through the Border (Mujeres y Fronteras in Spanish), is a photo exhibit that carries a different vision of women’s migration. Instead of focusing on the drama and the hardship, our goal is to help the audience follow the trip that these women have taken and to see them as people with a past, a present, and a future.  It is a showcase of photos that captures them with all their dreams and responsibilities, failures and successes. Without hiding their struggles, we also show their strength and determination as mothers, workers, wives, and migrants.

The photos tell many stories: they document the lives of some women in the fish markets of Casamance. They show that the effort of migrant women has meant that their children can go to school and aspire to a better life. They  reveal that Islam is not just about intolerance and violence (particularly against women). They show the music, the joy, and the hope that keeps Senegal and Africa going.

Once in Spain, our goal is to show that which is not shown in the mass media. We contrast the heartbreaking yet stereotypical images of Senegalese undocumented migration to Southern Europe to others of women crossing the border at the airport with a valid visa. This image sells less, but is more loyal to the every day reality of Senegalese migration to Spain. And thus we show what we have found: not destitute people willing to do anything to escape their country, but fighters whose goal is to support their families and improve the communities they come from.

The project Women Through the Border started as a dream to care for what we love. We hope that the collection of images (taken by Javier Acebal and Luna Vives) will help people in Europe put themselves in the shoes of Senegalese migrant women who have become our neighbours, and feel more curious about the places they come from.

With the help of many, including the Junta de Andalucía, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Universidad of Granada, the project has evolved from a photo exhibit to a series of activities including:

-          a concert,

-          story telling,

-          conferences,

-          a retrospective on Senegalese cinema,

-          and an on-line virtual exhibit.

The exhibit will open in Granada (Spain) on November 23^rd and in 2010 will travel to Gijón, Barcelona, Madrid (Spain) and Palermo (Italy). Soon we will have a website with more information on these events. If you are interested in hosting or financing the exhibit, please get in touch with us at

femmes.et.frontieres [at] gmail [dot] com