Radio Ballast - Version Anglaise

For over a year, François-Xavier Gbré travelled the territories crossed by the railway, photographing wagons, stations, maintenance workshops, but also the diversity of the landscapes. François-Xavier Gbré is an Ivorian photographer whose artistic practice explores territories and revisits history. His work is particularly interested in the language of architecture as a witness to memory and social change. As part of his prize-winning "Latitudes' program, he has chosen to embark on the railway line linking Abidjan to Niger. Built in the former French West Africa (AOF), the line was once dedicated to transporting raw materials from Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Niger, as part of an extractivist approach, and is still active today, but only for freight. The small stations, typical of colonial modernist architecture, and certain sections of the railway are now abandoned: the luxuriant nature of the regions crossed has gradually infiltrated, invading waiting rooms, sheds and dilapidated