Nineteen Ethiopians turn their cameras onto their own lives and invite you to share their very personal perspectives. From diverse backgrounds and different parts of the country, their photographs give a rare insight into life in Ethiopia now. They will continue to post new photographs regularly until the end of 2005, so please check the site regularly.
19 personas, 19 cámaras digitales, conexión básica a Internet y un blog con RSS . Resultado: un recorrido vivo y diverso por un país, su cultura, su sociedad y su economía.
Lo he descubierto gracias a Worldchanging (¿cuando descansa esta gente?). Como bien dicen, lo mejor de ste proyecto es que da una imagen real de Africa, más allá de la visión que nos propocionan los medios de comunicación centrados casi exclusivamente en el hambre y la pobreza extrema. Todo eso existe, pero, además, en Africa la gente (sobre)vive, trabaja e, incluso, disfruta:
For many in the West, the image of Ethiopia is stalled on the bleached landscape and desperate faces of the famine and drought of the 1980s. But these pictures remind us that the country is far more diverse than many of us might know, both in environment and industry. The stories the photographers tell about their own lives bears little resemblance to the fixed narrative assigned to Ethiopia by much of the world.
And along those same lines, these photographs provide an absolutely necessary balance to the kinds of images most often seen coming from Africa as a whole: starving children; devastated environments; rampant disease; a people lacking even a meagre control over their own lives. Such pictures aren't lies by any means, but neither are they the whole truth. There is much, much more to Africa than poverty and misery; there is hope, there is community, and there is the promise of a better future.
