ZALMAÏPHOTOGRAPHY
Under the spotlight of the upcoming World Cup, South Africa has yet to recover from the May 2008 upsurge of xenophobic attacks, which spread through most parts of the country, killing more than 60 people and displacing about 100,000 others. Most of the victims were refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe, Somalia and other African countries. Now most of them live rough on the streets, or cramped in apartments in townships. Traveling in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Makhado, I documented their struggle to survive.
n Colombia, the ongoing internal conflicts between La FARC and other paramilitary groups have forced more than 3.3 million flee their homes and seek shelter elsewhere in the country. Internally displaced people mostly come from the countryside where they have spent all their lives. They move to big cities like Bogota, Medellin, or Cartagena. Struggling to adapt to the unfamiliar urban environment, many are finding this experience traumatizing.
ECLIPSEZalmaïs photographs capture the slow, distressing drift of exile and dispossession: spectral figures against a stormy sky, a sheared row of peaks framing a figure like a sacred relic, horizons of men, both of this world and of some timeless land. This is a documentation of a journey through ambiguous territoriesfrom Cuba to India, Mali to the Philippines, Indonesia to Egypt, and a return to Zalmaïs native Afghanistana search for place when ones own land has been destroyed.
ECLIPSE
Zalmaïs photographs capture the slow, distressing drift of exile and dispossession: spectral figures against a stormy sky, a sheared row of peaks framing a figure like a sacred relic, horizons of men, both of this world and of some timeless land. This is a documentation of a journey through ambiguous territoriesfrom Cuba to India, Mali to the Philippines, Indonesia to Egypt, and a return to Zalmaïs native Afghanistana search for place when ones own land has been destroyed.
For more than a quarter of a century, Afghanistan has been ravaged by war, drought, and famine. Afghan-born photographer Zalmaï returns home after twenty-three years in exile to rediscover his homeland at a crucial moment of transition. Working in rich color, and frequently using a panoramic format that embraces the vastness of the sky and sand, Zalmaï immerses us in the ravaged landscape and the bustle of reconstruction. My project tries to capture the resilience of a people who have rarely known peace, their optimism in the face of overwhelming odds and the very real worry that the country remains on a knife-edge and could easily slip back into a nightmare from which it is still trying to escape.
In early 2008, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that an estimated 4.4 million Iraqis had been displaced from their homes as a result of the war. While nearly half were uprooted internally, the remaining citizens escaped to neighboring countries. The New York Times called the escalating crisis the largest exodus since the mass migrations associated with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Today, the situation of most refugees remains dire; months and years into forced flight, many are running out of money, food, and the good will of their hosts.
The challenge of urban refugees in Kuala Lumpur- MalaysiaIn Malaysia, refugees from Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia live in constant fear of detention and deportation, as there are no state mechanisms in place to protect them. Not being able to work legally and abandoned to their own means, they struggle to remain invisible to the eyes of the state, often falling into a state of non-existence. Like Kuala Lumpur, many other cities in the world are facing the challenge of accommodating the big numbers of refugees that are nowadays more and more gathering into the big cities.
The challenge of urban refugees in Kuala Lumpur- Malaysia
In Malaysia, refugees from Myanmar, Afghanistan and Somalia live in constant fear of detention and deportation, as there are no state mechanisms in place to protect them. Not being able to work legally and abandoned to their own means, they struggle to remain invisible to the eyes of the state, often falling into a state of non-existence. Like Kuala Lumpur, many other cities in the world are facing the challenge of accommodating the big numbers of refugees that are nowadays more and more gathering into the big cities.
