Christian Vium, Med Lemine Rajel
TALES OF A NOMADIC CITY
by Christian Vium and Med Lemine Rajel
Tales of a Nomadic City is a long-term collaborative research project spanning two decades. Centred on Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania, it assembles oral histories, vernacular archives, rare archival film and photographs, a feature documentary about the city, as well as a VR experience. The material is progressively given form and published in books, exhibitions, and online, meeting various audiences and inviting people to revision the history of the city.
For this installation at the Freiburger Filmforum, film excerpts from the archive are presented alongside an immersive VR experience co-directed by Christian Vium & Med Lemine Rajel, accompanied by a newsprint publication, a cassette, and a limited-edition poster.
Nouakchott was conceived and by French colonial politicians, architects, and urban planners, constructed ex-nihilo in 1958 as the future capital of what was to become the independent Islamic Republic of Mauritania. Little more than a cluster of houses and two wells in the late 1950s, the city is now home to approximately two million people, many of them former nomads originating from the surrounding desert. In the 65-year period following independence, it is estimated that the percentage of the total population living as nomads in Mauritania diminished from 85 percent to 5 per cent. The annual growth of the city between 1977 and 1988 alone was estimated at 15 per cent. In the aftermaths of the first ’Great Sahelian Drought’ of 1968-1973 and the severe droughts of 1982-1985, the number of nomads is considered to have diminished by 50 per cent. As elsewhere in the Sahel and the Sahara, the droughts were devastating, catapulting the country into a fundamental crisis. This made its mark, not least on the capital city, with a rural exodus, which continues to this day. Tales of a Nomadic City investigates the complex socio-cultural transformations, providing a comprehensive and layered anthropological narrative of this little-known city.
Nouakchott is a prism through which we may comprehend the extreme social transformations in a country that was formerly entirely nomadic and currently facing the compounded challenge of climate change and increasing political instability in the West African region at large. Engaging with the porous interstitial spaces that emerge at the intersection between nomadic and sedentary worlds, or desert and urban worlds, the project takes a cue from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s reflections on ’nomadology’, and the conflation of smooth and striated space. Tales of a Nomadic City presents a multimodal mapping of a city in perpetual transformation.
Christian Vium (b. 1980, Denmark), is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Aarhus University (DK). In addition to time-based media, he works increasingly with large-scale immersive installations integrating photography, films, sound, and archive material. His work has been exhibited in 40+ national and international exhibitions. Vium is Principal Investigator on the research projects ‘Revisioning the African City from the Periphery’ (Independent Research Foundation Denmark, 2025-2028) and ‘North Atlantic Everyday Stories’ (Velux Foundation, 2024-2027).
Med Lemine Rajel (b. 1986, Mauritania), is a filmmaker and cinematographer with his own film production company based in Nouakchott, Mauritania. With ten years of experience as a freelance video- and photojournalist working for clients such as AFP, BBC, Aljazeera, the UN, Al Araby, DMI, the Goethe-Institut and GIZ. Founder of the Teranim Popular Art Center in Nouakchott, and cinematographer, editor, and producer on several award-winning documentary films, including ‘The Last Shelter’ (CPH DOX main award 2021) and ‘The father Probably’ (Promotional Prize of Oberhausen short film festival 2024). BA degree in Sociology, Université de Nouakchott, Mauritania.
