Women behind the lens: ‘I envisioned these slaves whose lives were exchanged for indigo’

Stacey Gillian Abe’s Indigogo project explores how the dye was used in the slave trade – and how those enslaved people lost their identities

I

n 2018, I ended a 10-year relationship and it left me broken. I became quiet and irritable; I craved isolation and found myself putting up emotional barriers to avoid having to talk to anyone about it. It felt like I’d never recover.

Taking long walks has always been one of the ways I’ve dealt with my emotional and mental state. On one of these walks around my home city, Kampala in Uganda, I discovered an abandoned warehouse. The building was in the heart of the city, among offices and factories, but seemed isolated and forgotten.

Within its walls were rooms with doors that led deeper into smaller, more hidden rooms. Rather than unsettling me, I found the emptiness reassuring, and felt at peace for the first time in months. I was able to let my guard down because I was physically and mentally alone.