Concept.
The fragmented multimedia narrative HUMANS is the result of a more than 15.000 kilometer long journey from Capetown, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt with public transport, exploring the human condition through a series of documentary portraits and conversations with people about life, struggles, happiness and dreams on the Afrian continent.
The resulting body of work was exhibited and published in various forms online and offline and resulted in a book. HUMANS will be re-published online later this year, including yet unpublished stories.
Documentary.
The 19 min long final documentary was shown afterwards at different conferences and festivals while also functioning to connect and educate policy makers with the issue.
Stories.
The whole idea behind HUMANS was based on the believe that we connect with what we share and not with what separates us. Using this as an access point to the stories allow for a different connection to the stories we told. The centrepiece for every story was an interview with ten questions about life, love, values, struggles and dreams. From there we went and documented peoples lives with videos and pictures to create a layered portrait of the person. And one story at a time, create a fragmented, multi-layered, complex portrait of life and people on the African continent. After the initial run, the HUMANS project was taken to multiple other places in the world as well.
Travel.
The center piece of HUMANS was a 6 months long journey from the southern tip of the African continent to the top in Egypt. Only travelling by public transport means, it allowed us to stay close to people and often find us in situations, where we were the ones needing the help and support, what opened for a lot of interesting interactions and moments. Beside the countless days in mini busses, cars, boats, bicycles and motor bikes, it allowed is to visit countless homes and share the life with people along the way.
