The dead are not dead
This series is a photographic reflection on the future of women from the working class neighborhoods of the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, which is also my hometown. According to the A.F.D., the agglomeration of Antananarivo suffers the consequences of a demographic growth among the most important in Africa. These new urban residents, almost all of whom are poor, have settled there and illegal constructions have sprung up everywhere.
Initiated in March 2020, these portraits of women show faces marked by the reality of their lives in one of the poorest countries in the world where social assistance is non-existent. I chose a tight framing and a red background to warn here of a critical situation.
In a time of international conflicts, I chose to photograph women whose portraits also illustrate a silent and daily war that exhausts the mind and consumes the soul. These women must provide for their families after their husbands abandon the home with, on average, five children to feed.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), developed by the World Bank, defines poverty in three dimensions: health, education and standard of living. Often, these women have not gone beyond the primary level and do not have a stable income. Many of these families live in a room with no running water, in unhealthy areas and flooded during the rainy season, increasing the risk of epidemics. While the children often drop out of school before college due to lack of funds. Without visibility for their own future, the future of their children also remains unclear given the persistent economic instability, sharpened by the post-covid 19 crisis.
This photographic project allows us to take another look at a population that has become invisible to the rest of the inhabitants of Antananarivo. But also, a questioning of the precept of mutual aid and historical solidarity "Fihavanana" within the Malagasy people.
