Photo exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society

I stopped and had a look today at an exhibition at the Royal Geograpical Society by the British photographer James Morris of the mud architecture of West Africa.
The exhibition is called Butabu and is made up of photos from two trips to western Africa Morris made in 1999 and 2000 and features a lot of pictures taken in Mali and Niger, two countries that still have people living and maintaining adobe or mud buildings.

In countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon people even in the rural areas have started to build with concrete rather than mud, which requires constant re-rendering and subtly changes the shape of the buildings over time.

The pictures are large blown up, mainly black and white shots of these unique hand shaped structures, a lot of which seem to be mosques, I guess the locals put most of the effort into those.
It’s an interesting record of what you can build with the most basic of materials and no two will be the same but I don’t know that I’d want to live in one myself.

The Royal Geographical Society is located on the corner of Exhibition Road and Kensington Gore, just across the road from Hyde Park. Batubu has been on since the beginning of October but actually ends this Friday. Its in the pavilion, the glass building on the Exhibition Road side of the Society and is free to enter. The pavilion is open from 10am-5pm Mon-Fri and hosts regular exhibitions.

The Society itself was formed in 1830 to promote geographical science and through the years has supported expeditions by the likes of Darwin, Livingstone (there’s a statue of Livingstone set in the wall of the Society building on Kensington Gore), Stanley, Burton and Speke, Captain Scott and Shackleton. Anyone can apply to be a member and the society is open to the public to use their Reading Room with their written and photographic collections, there is a charge for non members. They also hold weekly lectures for members and guests.

A magazine, Geographical, covering travel, science, culture and other topics is produced monthly and currently costs £3.70, I managed to snag a copy gratis today. The Society’s open every weekday except bank holidays and the period between Christmas and New Year.