“As Detroit goes we all go”.
November 2008. Automotive industry crisis. Cutbacks, layoffs and bailouts. Sales of the once best-selling trucks and SUVs slide down due to the subprime mortgage crisis and the substantial increase in the oil prices. Detroit becomes a post war zone with high crime rates and low literacy, home to the Big Three, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler; a ghost city abandoned by its residents and companies who moved to the safer and relatively richer suburbs.
A project by Gianni Cipriano and Yusuf Sayman
“If you gotta die, and we all gotta die,
it’s me you want to bury you. Everybody in Harlem knows that.
I’m the guy who puts a smile on your face. Other places,
you just look dead”
The Isaiah Owens Funeral Home is in the heart of Harlem, New York. Mr. Owens is an artist, and the corpses are his masterpieces. From the moment they die, the undertaker accompanies the deceased in a process of burial customs resembling the ancient Egyptians. With dedication and respect, the modern Anubis, God of the dead, beautifully prepares the defunct for their after-life.
Death often represents a taboo in Western cultures. A taboo that Isaiah Owens challenges every day.
Multimedia project by Gianni Cipriano
God has given him a certain tool. His bike.
Too many things went wrong in Milton Walker’s life: the loss of children and people that were taken away from him too early. He joined the Christian Motorcycle Association to help minister and share his spirituality outside of the church, conversing with the Lord, thanking him, asking him and praying.
Photography and Audio: Gianni Cipriano
Produced: Alexandra Garcia
In December 2009 in Turin the trial against Eternit started,
with 2900 injured parties and 2100 people bringing a civil action in the criminal proceedings, the defendants being the former chiefs of the multinational company. They are accused
of intentional calamity and intentional omission of health
and safety checks. It is the first time that in Europe, in a lawsuit for environmental damages, an international board will defend those bringing a civil action in the criminal proceedings in a trial that will have to shed light on the death of about 3000 people. But in Casale people are still being diagnosed with mesothelioma. In Casale people are still dying.
Photos: Alfredo Covino
Editing: Mandeep Photography and Beyond
On 24 April 1915 began the mass deportation of Armenians
by the Ottoman Empire.
In the 95 th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Alvaro Deprit runs on the border of the victim’s story, which separates two peoples who have more in common among themselves then with the politicians who decide of their lives. On the line
of this border is still closed, the points of contact between
the two peoples appear as if they were suspended in time,
two communities unable to overcome a painful past
to get to know really each other.
Photos: Alvaro Deprit
Editing: Mandeep Photography and Beyond
The project describes and tries to document the working social and human conditions of workers in agricultural field in Italy;
in a period that strictly marks their life during the tomatoes harvesting in Basilicata, a region of the south of Italy,
during August and September.
There are about 3.000 migrants willing to work even 12 hours per day for only 25 euros. They live, or better they survive,
in empty houses without electricity and water and in extreme poverty conditions. They don’t have any rights, any form of assistance. They are at the mercy of corporals, mostly Italians, deputies to control not only their jobs but above all their life.
Photos and Videos: Alessandro Penso, Michele Palazzi
Editing: Massimo Bui