Emeka Okereke

Orientation

Encounter

Relation

Stewardship

What I am working on now

  1. Large-scale coordination of the 11th edition of the Invisible Borders Trans-African Road Trip
  2. Post-production of Episode 19 of NKATA Podcast: Art & Processes
  3. Shaping version 2.0 of the Footprints Poetry app

Emeka Okereke is a transdisciplinary artist, philosopher and systems designer whose practice takes image-making and photography as a point of departure, while moving through writing, film, sound, conversation, pedagogy, and collective and research platforms. For over twenty years, his work has explored the interstitial space between Self and Other, probing the nature of the distance delineated by border lines and imposed cartographies through which reality—and the world itself—is understood as divided and separated.

About Emeka and the practice

Currently in the field

A diptych in black and white. On the left a figure crouches at a window in a bare room beside a radiator. On the right, a wall covered with a dense tangle of dark curling marks.
The most recent work in the series. © Emeka Okereke

Photography — ongoing

Exploring a Void

2012 — present

gathers into Photography & Trans-Africanism: A Story of Journeys · 15 more

A long enquiry into what remains when a border is crossed and the ground does not settle. Recent chapters were made entirely in Neukölln.

Enter the work gathers into Photography & Trans-Africanism: A Story of Journeys·exhibited at Salzburger Kunstverein
  1. Invisible Borders Trans-African Project emerges from · Platform · 2012 — 2018
  2. A Border Philosophy emerges from · Writing · 2014
  3. Exploring a Void — “The Middle Ground” articulates · Writing · 2015
SEAD symbol: four interwoven coloured paths forming a four-way knot.

Constellation · since 2025

SEAD — The School of Ethics & Aesthetics of Difference

2025 —

Unveiled in 2025, SEAD — The School of Ethics & Aesthetics of Difference — is a field of orientation committed to future generations. It nurtures children, youth and lifelong learners, approaching difference not as a disruption of unity, but as the ground from which meaningful connection, relation and innovation can emerge.

Follow the platform

conversation

I wonder as I wander — with Akinbode Akinbiyi

28 February 2019 · Nkata

becomes film I Wonder As I Wander: On Akinbode Akinbiyi · 2 more

The first Nkata conversation: Akinbode Akinbiyi on photography and the rigour of wandering.

Enter the work becomes film I Wonder As I Wander: On Akinbode Akinbiyi·installed in an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations: Nkata Podcast: Art & Processes
  1. I Wonder As I Wander: On Akinbode Akinbiyi becomes film · Work · 2019 — 2020
  2. Reflections on Akinbode’s “Wanderings” extends into · Writing · 23 April 2021
  3. an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations: Nkata Podcast: Art & Processes installed in · Work · 2 March — 28 April 2024
Gallery installation: dark listening stations on a pale floor, framed images on the wall linked by a dotted line.
Installation view, an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations: Nkata Podcast: Art & Processes, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 2 March – 28 April 2024. © Emeka Okereke

exhibition

an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations: Nkata Podcast: Art & Processes

2 March – 28 April 2024 · Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)

seen in the room A Glimpse of Process: an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations

The podcast as installation, within the group exhibition “A Home for Something Unknown”.

Enter the work seen in the room A Glimpse of Process: an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations
  1. A Glimpse of Process: an Exhibition of FiVE Conversations seen in the room · Film · 3 March 2024
The Invisible Borders monogram: the letters I and B crossed by a line, in off-white on a deep blue square.

Constellation · since 2009

Invisible Borders Trans-African Project

2009 —

exhibited at New Museum · 3 more

An artists' organisation addressing the gaps that geopolitical borders make across Africa — and the ground beneath four bodies of photographic work.

Follow the platform exhibited at New Museum·travels through Lagos to Sarajevo
  1. New Museum exhibited at · Exhibition · 2012
  2. Lagos to Sarajevo travels through · Journey · 2014
  3. La Biennale di Venezia exhibited at · Exhibition · 2015
Cover of Emisferi / Hemispheres, issue 2/2026 of Rivista La Biennale di Venezia, photographed by Emeka Okereke.
Rivista La Biennale di Venezia, Emisferi / Hemispheres, no. 2/2026. Cover: La Biennale di Venezia · Photo: Emeka Okereke

Writing

A Roadside Philosophy

Emisferi / Hemispheres, no. 2/2026, Rivista La Biennale di Venezia · 2026

gathers into Invisible Borders Trans-African Project · 1 more

Words and photographs by Emeka Okereke in the second 2026 issue of the Biennale’s quarterly review, in its Materials section: the Trans-African road as method, and as a place from which inherited maps of separation are questioned.

Read the essay gathers into Invisible Borders Trans-African Project·returns to La Biennale di Venezia
  1. Invisible Borders Trans-African Project gathers into · Platform · 2026
  2. La Biennale di Venezia returns to · Exhibition · 2026
Dream Chamber. Enugu, Nigeria. From Dream Chamber, 2018.

Photography · Writings

Dream Chamber

2018

travels through Invisible Borders Trans-African Project · 6 more

Imposed cartographies as they are lived and reinterpreted daily by ordinary travelling and indigenous Africans.

Enter the work travels through Invisible Borders Trans-African Project·published in Dream Chamber and Other Stories of Journeys
  1. Invisible Borders Trans-African Project travels through · Platform · 2018
  2. Lagos to Kigali emerges from · Journey · 2018
  3. Dream Chamber and Other Stories of Journeys published in · Writing · 2019
The Footprints mark: the word “footprints” in white on a field of turquoise, coral and yellow.

In progress · 2025 —

Footprints — Parable of the Sojourner

2025 —

A living poetry anthology conceived, written and designed by Emeka Okereke.

Follow the work
The Nkata mark: two speech bubbles in conversation, one ink and one paper, holding the name between them.

Constellation · since 2019

Nkata Podcast

2019 —

taught through Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) · 7 more

Nkata is the Igbo word for conversation. The project uses the emotive power of voice in the collation, arrangement and transmission of embodied knowledge through the act of listening.

Follow the platform taught through Berlin University of the Arts (UdK)·gathers into Nkata
  1. Nkata gathers into · Conversation · 28 February 2019
  2. Nkata Podcast — Art & Processes gathers into · Conversation · 28 June 2019
  3. Nkata Podcast — Art & Processes gathers into · Conversation · 20 December 2019
Akinbode Akinbiyi in profile on a Berlin U-Bahn platform, lit by the overhead lamps, figures blurred along the platform behind him.

Film

A film by Emeka Okereke

I Wonder As I Wander: On Akinbode Akinbiyi

2019 — 2020

enters the retrospective Gropius Bau, Berlin · 5 more

A filmic dialogue between two Berlin-based Nigerian photographers of different generations, moving between Berlin and Bamako.

Enter the work enters the retrospective Gropius Bau, Berlin·screened at IL Kino, Berlin
  1. Gropius Bau, Berlin enters the retrospective · Exhibition · 7 February — 17 May 2020
  2. IL Kino, Berlin screened at · Screening · 7 October 2020
  3. Living the City, Berlin screened at · Screening · 8 October 2020
Emeka Okereke speaking on stage before an audience, the lit TEDxPorto sign behind him.

Talk

Transcending the Illusion of Borders & Separation

2025 · TEDxPorto

spoken through Invisible Borders Trans-African Project

What does it mean to move across borders — not just physical ones, but the unseen boundaries of perception, belonging and identity? What lies beyond?

Watch the talk spoken through Invisible Borders Trans-African Project
  1. Invisible Borders Trans-African Project spoken through · Platform · 2025
The Borderbeing submark: two serif B’s facing each other across a dotted line, in paper on ink.

Constellation · since 2008

Borderbeing

2008 —

gathers into A Border Philosophy · 6 more

Emeka’s writing platform, running since 2008: the place where the enquiry is thought in words. The texts that carry Exploring a Void were all published here, from A Border Philosophy in 2014 to Transdisciplinarity as the Ahistorical State of Being in 2025.

Follow the platform gathers into A Border Philosophy·gathers into Exploring a Void — “The Middle Ground”
  1. A Border Philosophy gathers into · Writing · 24 November 2014
  2. Exploring a Void — “The Middle Ground” gathers into · Writing · 26 January 2015
  3. A Photographer’s Note (I) gathers into · Writing · 5 April 2016
Cover of The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, edited by Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge, Routledge, 2024.
The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, edited by Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge. Routledge, 2024. Cover: Routledge / Taylor & Francis

Writing

Photography & Trans-Africanism: A Story of Journeys

“Wherever there is exchange, a boundary is traversed into unfamiliar spheres where another dimension takes on existence.”

The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies · 2024

gathers into Invisible Borders Trans-African Project

The essay that names the method running beneath the photographic work: Trans- as going beyond while crossing back and forth, the way an exchange does.

Read the essay gathers into Invisible Borders Trans-African Project
  1. Invisible Borders Trans-African Project gathers into · Platform · 2024
Emeka Okereke speaks at a laptop beside a large projected photograph of a figure seen from behind, wearing a vest printed with the word ILLEGAL and a date.

artist talk — 1 hr 29 min

Exploring a Void — at Galerie 5020

19 July 2018

enacts Exploring a Void · 1 more

The full lecture: the Work thought aloud, in the room, with the images present.

Watch the artist talk enacts Exploring a Void·takes place at Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts
  1. Exploring a Void enacts · Work · 2018
  2. Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts takes place at · Institution · 19 July 2018

Work &
Collaborate

The work continues through particular forms of encounter. Follow a route below to see what has already taken form—and how an exhibition, invitation, commission or partnership might resonate.

Explore all the ways to work and collaborate

Stay in relation: Community & Support · Letters from the Field

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