Madagascar: different views on the Covid
The photojournalist Mamy Rael, in front of his "Beggar of the first day of confinement".
© Sarah Tétaud / RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
On the occasion of the month of photography, the SAR'nao festival (“photo of you” in Malagasy) offers a traveling photo exhibition through 4 towns on the island.
The crossed gazes of two photographers, one from the capital, the other from the Great South, who throughout the pandemic captured moments of the “upset” life of their compatriots.
RFI met the two artists.
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With our correspondent in Antananarivo,
Sarah Tétaud
Deserted streets, masked military parade, choking wood collectors behind their mouthpads, schoolchildren spaced out on the school benches, street vendors looking for customers.
Showing the Covid other than through patients and overloaded health centers.
Show everyday life which has lost its normalcy.
Mamy Rael, photojournalist at
L'Express de Madagascar
, one of the country's national dailies, has made the streets and sidewalks her playground and offers a series of raw, lighthouse-less photos like this one.
“
This photo I called it
'Mpangataka, andro niatombohan' ny fihibohana ',
which means
' Beggar on the first day of confinement'.
It was March 23.
We see this man begging on the sidewalk, but there is no one there.
He wears a completely torn backpack, knitted gloves on his hands.
It's a little cold.
He also wears a mask, but not a surgical or cloth mask as seen at the moment.
It is a piece of cloth that he hung on his ears to hide his nose and his mouth.
When I see this photo, it touches me a little because he's not aware of what's going on;
he is always looking for money to eat, but he does not understand that no one is going to pass.
Life stopped there.
"
Dave Fangitse lives in Ihosy, in the south of the island.
The photographer immortalized the rural peasantry, the very people who did not believe in the coronavirus, who rebelled against wearing masks, and who had no other choice, as the artist says, than to “
endure life and face the pandemic
”.
“
In general, people suffer a lot there, from the temperature, from the drought linked to climate change.
It decreases agricultural production.
With the arrival of the pandemic, it really exaggerated the situation.
It really is a double penalty.
"
The exhibition opened this week in the capital Antananarivo.
The sixty pictures are to be contemplated until this weekend in the enclosure of the Directorate of Arts, Culture and Community Life in Tsimbazaza.
This traveling exhibition - like a trip across the country and a pandemic with various impacts - can be found in Ihosy, Tamatave and Majunga until the end of December.
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Madagascar
Culture
Coronavirus
Photography