See and read the photo essay here
Exhibition, Antwerp, 2025
The supply chain of construction materials: 28 pictures & 7 stories
In 2024 photographer Robert Carrubba visually documented the supply chain of sand, stones, gravels, timber, bricks, and cement in and around the city of Bukavu. He did so based on insights from, and together with members of, the VLIR TEAM project From handmade gravel to handmade urbanism. 9 project members wrote 7 stories accompanying 28 selected pictures. Referring to one stage in the supply chain and an associate practice (breaking, loading, baking, selling, carrying, storing, building), each story showcases the agency of the laborers as well as the risks and the precarity they endure. The pictures and the stories combined shine a light on a sector that is largely invisible in academic research as well as development practice and policies.
The pictures and stories have been published as a chapter in the book Caring for our common home. Sustainability, justice and solidarity within university partnerships (Geenen et al eds, Owl Press, 2025).
Photo essay, 2024
Robert Carrubba is a photographer and filmmaker based in Bukavu, DRC. He visually documented the men, women and children working in the supply chain of gravel, sand, bricks and cement around Bukavu. The text is written by Lilian Nabintu Kabagale, Divin-Luc Bikubanya and Sara Geenen. Financial support was given by VLIR-UOS and by USOS, the University Foundation for Development Cooperation at the University of Antwerp.