2019 MiamiPhotoFest INTERNATIONAL EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

MYSTIC VALLEY

Nadoria is a 13 years old girl of the Suri tribe in Ethiopia, lives in a small mountain village near the border with Sudan. She is the daughter of one of the elders of the tribe. The size of her ear plate indicates the extent of her dowry. “The bigger my ear plate, the higher number of cows my family will get from my marriage”.  Barduri, is a young man of 17 years of the same Suri tribe in Ethiopia. He has lost vision in his right eye as a result of a wound during the celebration of the "stick fight", ancestral ceremony consisting of an unprotected stick fight against young members of the neighboring tribes. A ritual for the transition of young stars to men. Far from feeling sorry Barduri feels pride, he has shown his family that he is a brave man, he has become a man, a warrior of honor. He has won his right in the tribe to be able to choose his wife and that she respect him.  From the beginning of history the human race is composed of a large number of cultures, people and tribes. Each one has its own way of life, values and social rituals. The portraits of these people invite our conscience to remember the importance of understanding cultural identities in all their variety.  Portraits of the fragility of a female childhood subrogated to warriors of honor.  Portraits of his reality.  It is vast, silent. Magical. Omo Valley

Elena Anosova -  In the Out-of-the-way project, I work with my main subject – isolation that is inspired by part of my family living in the Extreme North. Local and family traditions and legends still have power in Northern Lands, where they create unique regional mythology frozen in time.

Out-of-the-way is a story about a settlement in the extreme North of Russia, where bad accessibility and isolation, special relationship with nature and following the centuries-old ways of life involve unique mythology of the region where the fictional things are very often more important than modern reality.  These lands are immersed in the flow of their own life activity, where the past and the present surprisingly interlace.  My ancestors were hereditary hunters in a small settlement in the basin Nizhnyaya Tunguska River. Almost 300 years ago they came to colonize Siberia, then assimilated into the Evenkis (Tunguses) and founded a village in the taiga. Nowadays the population of the village is 100 adults and the closest town is 300 km away, there are no roads and the only thing that connects it with civilization is the helicopter that shuttles twice a month, the transport connection (winter road) functions only 2,5 winter months.  Life of this part of my family — my father’s siblings and numerous cousins and nephews — has not changed for centuries in that remote area surrounded by pristine wilderness.  Modern civilization penetrates slowly and fragmentarily in there, it is intricately woven into the local way of life. Electricity, supplied by a diesel generator, is available only in the mornings and evenings. Temperatures in winter average -45° Celsius.  Using family archetypes, I combine photography, archive, objects and installations in my work, and I hope to arouse interest in other family histories and ask questions... ...such as...who we are, where do we come from, and how encapsulated micro-communities survive without external influences, when logistics is difficult, there have to deal with isolation, harsh climate and wild nature around.

SERIES COMPETITION - Finalists