BACONGO Ti Kaku Baporte Bilongi by BURST 387 is a hard-cover accordian book comprised of 80 pigment prints (20 of which are double sized fold-out images) printed on hand-treated Khadi paper. The images document the walls, gates and faces seen in Bocongo, the 2nd arrondissement of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo.

Although physically close to the more bustling commercial and political center of Brazzaville, it is geographically isolated, and has retained a more casual and traditional building style then these more developed areas.

The neighborhood is layed out with a large rectangular grid of streets, many named after famous French writers, composers and intellectuals. (Meet you at the corner of Berlioz and Montaigne) but, most of these streets are paved with sand. The buildings share a trait seen in many areas in Africa, the living quarters are never directly on the street.  Almost all of the residential buildings are built behind tall, sheet-metal or concrete walls. Some of the walls surround compounds of buildings, some surround single-story concrete block homes, and some surround modern glass and concrete houses three or four stories high. In the vast majority of cases these walls are well maintained, repaired where needed, painted or in some instances covered with swathes of highly decorated tiles. The gates too offer the opportunity of displaying both pride of place, and a certain amount of wealth to boot.

There is very little graffitti-tagging, but on the walls surrounding schools there are often illustrated admonitions of school rules (no knives or tight dresses) and more didactic images of famous people of the world with inspirational texts.

Small commercial buildings along these streets of course do have direct entrances, although they tend to continue the streetline of the walls. These buildings also have a wide variety of signs and signifiers painted on their sides. The faces in the book come from portraits either painted or posted by small beauty salons and barber shops, car-repair shops, police-recruitment stands, photography studios, polititians, spiritual leaders, bars and cabarrets as well as a few independent artists displaying their work to the passing crowds.

The book is meant to be a simulcrum of a long lazy walk through a fascinating small neighborhood in the heart of Africa.