Photography: Broken Promises

In the 1970s and 1980s, so many promises were made to Liberia and by Liberians. All of them would be broken over the next two decades. As part of a long term project I’m beginning, I plan to document the spaces of these broken promises.

The photos here are of an unfinished building funded by the American government in the 1980s and promised to then President Samuel Doe as part of Cold War favor swapping. The building is still referred to as the Ministry of Defense, though it was never used as one. The war interrupted construction, and the building was never finished. It looms large over Congo Town in Monrovia, a skeletal reminder of all that was promised at that point in history.