Dreaming about what your life will be like in a few years time: we all know the feeling. A nice house, a loving partner, a good income, a family, a good job. Or perhaps living abroad, on an adventure around the world and developing your talents. Who knows? What do you need to realise those dreams? What risks do you need to take? To what extent are those dreams compatible with reality?

Last summer photographer Karine Versluis travelled to Lagos (Nigeria) where she met a number of young women who had come from eastern Nigeria to Lagos to start a new life for themselves. Some of them dreamed of going further, to Europe, because they had heard such good stories about it. Back in the Netherlands Versluis interviewed people from West Africa — among them Nigerian women who had ventured to realise their dream of coming to Europe, to the Netherlands. How did things turn out for them? What did they encounter? How do they look back on what happened? And what’s their advice to the dreaming women in Lagos?

One day I’m gonna make it is an exhibition in which photographic images come to life through audio fragments in which various women talk about their lives and the choices that helped them get to where they are now. One day I’m gonna make it prompts the visitor to reflect on the boundaries between dreams of the future and reality, and what it means to leave hearth and home in search of a better life.