The conditions in which we live, domestically, publicly and spiritually, are not passive environments, but active protagonists playing a persistent role in how we perceive and experience the world. Our cities, homes and borders are inherited. We cannot control the living conditions into which we are born; these conditions affect our understanding of the world and establish our points of reference before education, media consumption and personal experience begin to affect our worldviews. The territories in which we are born are great determiners of our rights as human beings in the world. They affect the language(s) we will speak, the mobility our passports will or will not allow, our sense of self-determination and what we believe we can achieve.

We, in turn, affect our environments through behaviour that alters them, often protecting them, or protecting ourselves from them. Through architecture, decoration and the alteration of landscapes by dredging, pollution or urbanisation, we continually reshape the conditions in which we live. Within our homes, our choices of decoration, furniture and objects are expressions of our values and identities. Beyond the home, this is particularly visible in dense cities, where graffiti, decorated transport and the use of public space reveal the ways we imprint ourselves onto our surroundings, making our environments an extension of our lives.

Art and photography bear witness to all of this, documenting and narrating our relationships with the spaces we inhabit. They capture not only landscapes and architecture, but the ways we move through, adapt to and ascribe meaning to them.

This issue of Random Photo Journal centres on the theme of Living Conditions. Artists from the African continent and its diaspora present the relationship between people and space as one of constant negotiation. We are at a moment in time in which our environments sit at the forefront of our thinking, with climate change having immediate and extreme effects on our day-to-day lives. In my home city of Lagos, this is marked by the absence of harmattan for the first time in my living memory, followed by months of heavy rains and extreme flooding, which have made movement within the already densely populated and complex city even more strenuous.

This theme brings to the fore the idea that our living conditions are emotional as well as physical. Certain environments make us feel secure or hopeful, while others may make us feel constrained or anxious. Proximity to nature within a concrete city, for instance, can act as a form of relief, with beaches, parks and other public green spaces providing room for gathering, recreation and rest. Such places are more than backdrops to everyday life. They affect our encounters with one another, offer moments of respite, and act as reminders that living is not only about productivity, or movement from one place to another, but also about stillness and presence.

What conditions allow people not only to survive, but to live? In a world dominated by capitalism and the constant push for endless growth, expansion and progress, this is a question we are repeatedly confronted with. This issue of Random Photo Journal offers space to consider this question through artists who explore the conditions of our everyday life. Together, the imagery gathered here reminds us that the environments we inhabit are not neutral. They are influenced by us, just as we are influenced by them.