WATER NO GET ENEMY: COUNTER-CARTOGRAPHIES OF DIASPORA
Remi Kuforiji
︎︎︎











The project aims to develop a model of resistance to neo-colonial practices of crude oil extraction and ecocide in the Niger Delta. By learning from indigenous epistemologies archived in Nigerian masquerade, the project proposes a new masquerade: a method of cartography that critiques harmful extractive practices by bringing multiple diasporic sites into dialogue through performance.

Through conversation and collaboration with activists, artists, architects, researchers and performers from Nigeria, Water No Get Enemy proposes an innovative method of analysing resource relations between extractors and sites of extraction.i Collapsing time and distance between these two worlds.

This is a call to rethink our relationship to resource use; reassess the ramifications of extractive architectural technologies; and renew our relationship to indigenous knowledge as a serious form of spatial practice.

The final output is a narrative-driven film essay, that follows the journey of Wale, a British born Nigerian, who seeks to assemble his fragmented understanding of Nigeria’s culture, tensions and histories.ii Through analysing the logistics of oil in the Niger Delta, as well as the archives of Kalabari masquerade, Wale and his collaborators create a masquerade of diaspora.

Themes: Premonitions of Bodies, Spatial Claims

Methods: Fragments, Performance, Counter-Cartography




[i] For a piece that offers a dynamic analysis of resources, see: AN EXTENSION OF DATA: THE NEW BLACK GOLD by Ibiye Camp

[ii] For a piece on fragmented histories and identities, see: THE BORDERING IDENTITY OF A NORTHEAST AFRO-ARABIAN by Iman Nagy




Remi Kuforiji is a spatial practitioner and researcher based in East London. He completed the BA Architecture course at the University of Westminster, before working at HawkinsBrown. Recently graduating from the MA Architecture course at the Royal College of Art, his research focuses on the intersections between the politics of race, coloniality, cartography, and performance. His thesis project ‘Water No Get Enemy’ positions masquerade as a method of cartography to critique the neo-colonial extraction of the Niger Delta’s resources. Currently, Remi is working with Cooking Sections, a London based duo examining the systems that organise the world through food.

︎ @remi3k