The “Latitudes” exhibition at ICP brings together two new photography projects reflecting on Côte d’Ivoire’s past and present.
Without boxing it in or defining it, two artists approach Côte d’Ivoire from deeply personal vantage points in a new exhibition at the International Center of Photography.
“Latitudes: Nuits Balnéaires and François-Xavier Gbré” brings together two new bodies of work that move through the West African country’s terrain and histories. The effect is a sense of Côte d’Ivoire, rather than a fixed map.
Multidisciplinary artist and poet Nuits Balnéaires uses memory and imagination as lenses for viewing Côte d’Ivoire. His project, “Eboro,” is shaped by the unresolved death of his uncle, Noel X Ebony. Ebony was a journalist, poet, and playwright whose work addressed the politics of African independence. Balnéaires welcomes uncertainty. Grief, longing, and possibility coexist. At times, the past slips into the present and disappears again.
“Eboro” is presented through short, color-coded image sequences that connect family histories of displacement with his own relationship to migration. The images shift between intimate moments and more expansive scenes.
A two-channel video projection accompanies the photo installation. Film, literature, poetry, fashion, and internet culture references surface throughout, suggesting an identity shaped as much by digital communities as by national borders.
The title itself, translating roughly to “boundary,” points to the instability of those divisions and the possibility of imagining beyond them.
François-Xavier Gbré’s “Radio Ballast” is more grounded in the physical world. For nearly 15 years, Gbré has photographed architecture and landscape across Africa, tracing how political history becomes embedded in infrastructure. He followed the railway that cuts through Côte d’Ivoire from north to south, built during French colonial rule to extract resources and funnel them to the port of Abidjan and to Europe.
In Gbré’s images, the railway threads together different eras. The photographs unite colonial ambition, post-independence transformation, recent political upheaval, and the everyday present.
The title “Radio Ballast” hints at this instability. “Ballast” refers to both the crushed stone supporting train tracks and slang for circulating rumors — partial truths, contradictions, and shifting stories. History, in Gbré’s photos, remains unsettled.
The exhibition is part of “Latitudes”, a photography initiative developed by Fondation d’entreprise Hermès in collaboration with the International Center of Photography and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. The program focuses on artists working beyond the traditional centers of the photography world, and Côte d’Ivoire is the program’s first country of focus. Each “Latitudes project,” including this new exhibition, comes with a photobook published by Atelier EXB and the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
“Latitudes: Nuits Balnéaires and François-Xavier Gbré” at The International Center of Photography in New York City from Jan. 29 to May 4. All images by © Jenna Bascom for International Center of Photography.
