“To consider a place largely from the perspective of a permanent anthropological past…is not simply to present an alternative truth: It is to indulge in fantasy”

To consider a place largely from the perspective of a permanent anthropological past, to settle on a notion of authenticity that edits out the present day, is not simply to present an alternative truth: It is to indulge in fantasy.

Teju Cole, “On Photography”, The New York Times Magazine (3 April 2016), 18.