By Nii B. Andrews.
The Volta Lake remains the world’s largest artificial lake; it is the backbone of Ghana’s fishing industry and also features in the country’s highest award – the Order of the Volta.
In his debut photo book – BOYS OF THE VOLTA; the Brooklyn resident, Jeremy Snell, trains his lens on the young boys who live and work around the lake.
A significant number of them are there under precarious circumstances.
In a searing introduction to the book, the eminent Ghanaian writer and poet, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, comments on the contrasts and contradictions, the “beauty and terror” that permeate Lake Volta.
Snell’s photos reverberate with Parkes’ characterisation.
The photos evoke an otherworldiness impregnated with arresting tropes such as fishing nets and the murky waters suffused with haze and sometimes even diffuse or blinding light.
Snell succeeds in transmitting the myriad nuanced circumstances of the boys who work on the lake and the lake itself as an indispensable part of Ghanaian life.
