Val juma

No Papers, No Borders

NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE

Nigeria 🇳🇬
The Weight of Hope

Not every journey begins with a choice.

Some begin with responsibility.

A family waiting for money to come home.
A dream that cannot survive without crossing a border.
A future that depends on finding work, wherever opportunity exists.

Too often, the conversation about migration forgets the human being carrying it all.

Behind every passport is a son.
A daughter.
A parent.
A worker.
A life.

The question isn’t whether Africans should move.

The question is why crossing a border on your own continent can sometimes cost you your dignity.

If Ubuntu means “I am because we are,” does it stop at the border?

No Papers, No Passage is a visual conversation about migration, identity and what it means to belong in Africa.

What does Ubuntu mean to you today?

Identity Borders Africa Diaspora VisualStorytelling FineArtPhotography ContemporaryArt DocumentaryArt Humanity SocialCommentary ArtForChange Johannesburg Lagos AfricanVoices ValJuma

NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE
Malawi 🇲🇼

She carries more than possessions.

She carries a birthplace. A family. A history. A language. A home.

Across Africa, countless people leave everything familiar behind, not because they want to, but because they are searching for safety, dignity and the chance to build a better future.

Yet too many Malawians living and working in South Africa are met with fear, hostility and violence simply because they were born on the other side of a border.

This is not Ubuntu.

The borders that divide us today were drawn by colonial powers. They were never meant to define our humanity.

No Papers, No Passage asks us to remember that before we are citizens of nations, we are Africans.

Africa is bleeding.

Simunye EndXenophobia AfricanUnity HumanRights ContemporaryAfricanArt AfricanPhotography ValJuma

NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE

Zimbabwe 🇿🇼

Zimbabwe stood with South Africa during the struggle against apartheid.

It opened its borders. It gave sanctuary to those fleeing oppression. It trained and supported freedom fighters when freedom came at a cost.

Today, many Zimbabweans living in South Africa face violence, intimidation and are told they do not belong.

How did we get here?

This is more than a Zimbabwean story. It is an African story.

When we turn against one another, we betray the sacrifices that helped free a continent.

Africa was never meant to be divided by hatred.

Africa is bleeding.

Today, it is Zimbabwe. Tomorrow, it could be any one of us.

🇿🇼

Simunye AfricanUnity EndXenophobia StopTheViolence JusticeForMigrants StandWithZimbabwe HumanRights OneAfrica AfricanVoices PanAfricanism

NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE

Africa was never meant to be divided by the borders we inherited.

Yet today, some of those borders have become lines of fear, exclusion and violence.

NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE is a portrait series about the lived experiences of poor Black African migrants navigating xenophobia, displacement and the fragile search for belonging.

These portraits are not documentaries. They are symbolic. Each image carries the weight of identity, memory, labour, hope and survival. They ask what it means to be African when movement across our own continent can come at such a human cost.

This project does not seek to divide. It asks us to look at one another with honesty, empathy and humanity.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing one portrait at a time.

This is NO PAPERS, NO PASSAGE.

Malawi Zambia Ghana SouthAfrica Xenophobia Afrophobia Ubuntu AfricanUnity BlackAfricanLives ContemporaryAfricanArt AfricanArt FineArtPhotography PortraitPhotography VisualStorytelling Migration Belonging DiasporaStories AfricanDiaspora HumanRights

Invisible started as a question I couldn’t stop asking….. what does it feel like to be completely present in your life and still feel unseen, even by yourself? Mental health does that. It covers you. Not violently, not all at once, but slowly, beautifully almost, until you look in the mirror and can’t quite find your own face. This image is that feeling made visible. The figure is dressed, composed, held together on the outside and entirely obscured within. Every butterfly is a thought, a version of self, a feeling that never quite got named. first edition sold out. Thank you to all the collectors your support is always appreciated .
Work created during our 6month artist residency that myself and Julius did with
ArtThatHeals

The first edition from this series is now sold out.
What began as a personal exploration of identity, pressure and what we carry has now moved into private collections.
There are a few prints remaining.
Each piece holds something concealed, something protected, something unresolved.
Once these are placed the series closes.
No reprints.
DM to enquire
Artists Val+Julius

Sarau …..
Sarau is a series of stills and a short film birthed from our previous project The City They Walk. Created in Bahia, we shaped this work in two forms because the story needed more than one way to speak. It is inspired by the Candomble spiritual practices and by African spiritual symbolism and mythology that move quietly through colour, gesture, and ritual.

The Brazilian symbol artists used the body as a medium of language. They painted with an understanding that felt older and deeply connected to the ancestors. Once the symbols touched the skin the work shifted. It felt as if the message was rising through us rather than being crafted by us. A kind of knowing that lives deep within our DNA.

For me Sarau became a quiet revelation. A reminder that the body remembers what the mind forgets. The film and the stills hold that truth in different ways but honour the same current. Sarau stays open. It does not tell you what to see. It invites you to listen and let meaning find you.

Adult 1 and 2 : .baiano
Spirit Julius Reuben
Photography/videography
Drums
Talent scout
Location scout
Story by Julius Reuben
Direction
Produced by
First assistant director
Film Production/Edit
Digital cleanup
Costume design .macrame.design
Photography assistant

……..The City They Walk

Salvador carries spirit in its streets. The city hums with rhythm that refuses to fade, where the ordinary is always close to the divine.
The City They Walk was born from this encounter. We drew on the guardianship of the Orisha and the raw energy of Bahia’s communities. Through still and moving images we try to hold onto what cannot be held …. presence, rhythm, divinity in motion.

Model :
Photography
Talent scout
Stylist/Mua
Production assistant
Costume design .macrame.design
Photography assistant

Some gods move through light, not temples. But sometimes they choose the dark.
They rise above the noise, finding sanctuaries in unexpected places.
On a rooftop in the favela, the Orixa stands between earth and sky , where prayer meets rhythm and colour becomes breath.

Salvador holds that spirit in its streets. The city hums with memory, where the divine and the everyday live side by side.

The City They Walk was born from this pulse, guided by the Orixa and the heartbeat of Bahia’s people.
Through still and moving images, we try to hold what cannot be held ….presence, rhythm, divinity in motion.

Model
Photography
Talent scout
Stylist / MUA
Production assistant
Costume design .macrame.design
Photography assistant