NomadicMILK

The project will follow dairy transporters (PEAKmilk brand) and Fulani nomadic herdsmen in Nigeria, tracking both their routes with GPS (Global Positioning System).

A new locative media project by Esther Polak and team
The project will realize a colorful sand drawing on the ground, visualizing the variety of dairy transports that take place throughout Nigeria.
The sand drawing will be based on actual GPS (Global Positioning System) recordings, that the NomadicMILK team plans to collect in 2009 in close collaboration with dairy transporters in Nigeria: being both Fulani cattle owners and people involved in the distribution of condensed milk and powder milk. Beside the sand drawing (that will be executed in differed places all over the world) the project will result in a poetic film that will tell the story of the landscape, people, economy and mobility behind the sand drawing.

Fulani
The Fulani are nomadic herdsmen who move with their cattle in annual migrations in search of water, fodder and markets. These migration patterns have been carefully chosen, based on combined knowledge of age-old historic experience and actual day-to-day situations inside and outside their camps. Because their mobile lifestyle is so unlike that of non-nomadic outsiders, their reasoning seems inaccessible, and they are often misjudged as ‘primitive’.

PEAK milk transporters (truck drivers, van drivers, hand hamper pushers)
In the daily live of the Nigerian people dairy is available on almost every street corner, as condensed milk in cans, or milk powder. The dairy (often Peak brand) is distributed over Nigeria in a complex manner. As it arrives in big containers in the Lagos harbor; you can question how it manages to pop up at small selling points in the remote areas of rural Nigeria.

NomadicMILK
Both Fulani and the Peak dairy form an economy based on mobility.
The project NomadicMILK aims to raise awareness of those mobility patterns and use of space through an artistic visualization of the dairy routes, achieved by combining new media such as global positioning systems, mobile telephones and a GPS. Fulani herdsman and Peak transporters will be equipped with GPS receivers built into mobile phones.

GPS-drawing Robot
To be able to discus the routes with both groups, a new visualization tool will be developed special for this project: a GPS drawing robot. The Robot will be able to read GPS –data: The collected routes will be drawn as a scaled sand-track by the GPS drawing robot on the ground, in a very direct and recognizable way. The tracks will thus be discussed amongst the Fulani, Peak transporters and the team. The combination of the expected routes shows the difference in spatial organization of both dairy economies.

Pastoral landscape
By mapping ever-changing Fulani migration routes, and modern Peak transports this project will create a contemporary form for depicting pastoral landscape. No matter how different their lifestyles might seem, the two groups can be considered colleagues in a shared workplace.
In this way, it becomes possible to communicate about something that is normally invisible: the routes covered by individuals and their daily routines in a spatial context. In addition to the aesthetic aspect of the project, the route visualizations will give both the Fulani herdsmen and Peak transporters a new perspective on their own perceptions of place, mobility and economics. Their comments and reactions to the sand-drawings of the routes that are so vital to them will be the centre of focus in the project.

This way the project will result in a poetic film explaining the world behind the abstract sand drawing. To realize the film (production, recording, editing and soundtrack) we‘ll collaborate with and relay on the expertise of New Age Film Company in Kaduna, Nigeria.In the course of 2009 the project will finalize the installation and website showing Nigeria’s space, landscape, stories and its active, flexible economy.

The installation is designed so that it can travel light. We plan to present the project at venues in Africa, Europe and US to differed audiences, so that the public gets an unexpected insight in Nigeria’s daily (mobile) live. The venues we choose, will be both in the context of artistic- and business communities. The project will also be presented via its website. On the website we will publish small clippings of the project footage, and a growing journal of the project and its (international) feedback.

For now, we we did set up this simple blog so you can follow our efforts to develop and promote  the project.
If you feel like contributing to the project, be welcome and contact us!