Omo Change
Omo Change tells and document the big investments from European and Chinese countries in the Omo Valley, one of the most important place for its peculiar biodiversity despite the desert or semi-desert ambient. In fact, this area has been declared as UNESCO Human Heritage site in the 1980. A big dam construction and foreign investments for brand new cotton farms are changing dramatically both the naturalistic ambient and the local population daily life. Moreover, there is a big government project to build sugar factories carrying off more than 200,000 hectares to the tribes with a consequent reshaping of the territorial and social borders. The Omo Valley is seeing its biggest contradiction, the one that has been generated by the investments of the so-called development. The Omo Valley risks of becoming a pool of resources for the rest of the world but not for its own population.
Fausto Podavini
Fausto Podavini was born in Rome, where he currently lives and works. After graduating from the Technical Institute of Electronics, he obtained his Masters in Reportage at the “John Kaverdash” Photography Academy in Milan. He began his photographic career first as an assistant and studio photographer, gradually approaching photo-reportage. Podavini has done important work in Italy, such as a report on sport for the disabled, a report on a juvenile prison and a project on Alzheimer’s disease, with which he won the Daily Life prize from the World Press Photo in 2013. He won several international awards.
Exhibition presented within the framework of the Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay.
For more information on the Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay, consult the zoomphotofestival.ca
