Along the shores of Senya Beraku, where passersby pause to pluck coconuts from bowed palms or play football facing the surf — and across Accra more broadly — the city reveals a remarkable ability to absorb its inhabitants, countering the lure of anonymity. It’s this tender permeability, this ambient sentience, that Morgan Steyaert captures in the gauzy immediacy of Polaroids, where fleeting encounters distill into lasting bonds.
One such encounter occurred in a crowded market with Uncle Taller — a man whose towering stature and warm grin struck her instantly. For months, Steyaert had been gripped by a photograph of a Rwandan dignitary: cloaked in a white robe stippled with black dots, clutching a slender stick. She gathered thin branches, bleached them bone-white, and embroidered a constellation of white dots onto a black jalabiya. When Uncle Taller finally stood before her — robed and regal — she fidgeted, Polas in hand, as fluke and archive folded into a single click.
Along the shores of Senya Beraku, where passersby pause to pluck coconuts from bowed palms or play football facing the surf — and across Accra more broadly — the city reveals a remarkable ability to absorb its inhabitants, countering the lure of anonymity. It’s this tender permeability, this ambient sentience, that Morgan Steyaert captures in the gauzy immediacy of Polaroids, where fleeting encounters distill into lasting bonds.
One such encounter occurred in a crowded market with Uncle Taller — a man whose towering stature and warm grin struck her instantly. For months, Steyaert had been gripped by a photograph of a Rwandan dignitary: cloaked in a white robe stippled with black dots, clutching a slender stick. She gathered thin branches, bleached them bone-white, and embroidered a constellation of white dots onto a black jalabiya. When Uncle Taller finally stood before her — robed and regal — she fidgeted, Polas in hand, as fluke and archive folded into a single click.
