Memories and Uncertainty
This photo opens the collection of my Ethiopian trip, a visual journey through a country rapidly changing in a dramatic and unprecedented way. Ethiopia in fact, thanks also to the strong cooperation with China, has, for the last twenty years, gone through a radical "facelifting", with the reconstruction of Addis Ababa and other towns, the construction of many roads and highways and, most of all with the putting up of immense dams that will guarantee the energy self-sufficiency of the Country (too bad they also are the major cause of international disputes with neighboring countries such as Kenya, Suda and even, far in the north, Egypt). The photo I chose to open this collection is a symbolic one: Two Ethiopian children, belonging to a pastoralist tribe, whose identity has become blurry and fragile as its reflection in the water of the pond before them. This choice is the starting point of a trip that will move from the capital Addis Ababa to the Omo Valley in the southern part of the country, where many indigenous tribes still live or survive, having to compromise or sell their traditional culture as they cope with displacement, climate change and the arrival of mass tourism. Then from the Omo Valley, we will drive back to the north, witnessing, through other symbolic and "loud" visuals, the dichotomy between the have and have not in spite of "progress", is still clear and present
