Discs of the Sun

Public installation, Lomé, Togo

In Lomé, a market umbrella is not a decorative object. It is a business registry, a land title, a declaration of existence within the informal economy. Discs of the Sun brings together two realities of the city: the tailors of Hédzranawoé market, who handcraft umbrellas from fragments of secondhand clothing arriving in Lomé from the Global North, and the more than 200 residents of the abandoned Hôtel de la Paix, who inhabit a modernist ruin the city has forgotten.

Each umbrella is assembled by hand , an individual gesture within a collective work. Installed with the residents on the facade and inside the hotel, the umbrellas do not hide the ruin. They inhabit it, making visible the systems of repair that keep the city alive.

The project is documented through aerial photography, ground level portraits and a composed sound piece following a day at the market, in collaboration with Fialor Institute.