Sunday 06 September 2009Africa specialist Pascal Maître is back at the photojournalism festival in Perpigan. His latest exhibit shows the fruits of six years of travelling through Somalia, a nation ‘abandoned by all’.
At the Visa International festival of photojournalism, Pascal Maître feels right at home. Maître has worked as a photographer for over 30 years and this is the sixth time he is exhibiting at the festival in Perpignan. This time he presents “Somalia: the nation abandoned by all,” a project originally commissioned by magazines “Geo” (German edition) and National Geographic.
This exhibit has no central thesis, given the difficulty of creating a traditional narrative in a nation where restrictions and dangers abound. “Over there, it’s necessary to work under military protection, or you’ll be kidnapped in five minutes. We were afraid to make a single move,” he explains. His reportage consists of several separate trips each lasting just a few days, between 2002 and 2008 in Mogadishu and its surroundings, with one jaunt into Somaliland.
At the exhibit, the visitor is struck by the vibrant colours, drawing one from the ruins of Mogadishu’s green zone to the polluted coast of Somalia. Fighting, education and the environment offer the keys through which to understand the country and its inhabitants, which Maître is sorry to have “left behind”. The French photographer takes us on a guided tour of his work:..more..http://www.france24.com/en/20090906-somalia-pascal-maitre-somalia-international-photojournalism-visa-image-perpignan
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