A few months ago, while going through photographic blogs on WordPress I stumbled upon a blog reEthiopia. At that time, their photo series Black & Light was published online and it caught my eye. I really liked it. I liked the idea, the story behind it and the end product. I chatted to Brook, who I believe is a founder of reEthiopia and we checked out each other’s blogs and works while speaking the universal language of photography. Few weeks later Brook had an idea to do a collaboration photo project.
“Livelihood” – a project about street vendors, their activities on streets, their struggles. The idea was that we were to exchange and compare street vendors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Montpellier, France.
I thought it was a very good idea and an interesting subject to explore. However, while doing some searching and exploring around the city where I’m based in – Montpellier, I realised that the contrast is going to be quite sharp. I could hardly find any illegal street vendors whose lives depend on selling their goods and feeding their families unlike street vendors in Ethiopia. You can check out my timid input here on reEthiopia blog.
In exchange, I’d like to post Brook’s instalment in this project which I believe deserves more recognition and awareness as it’s a far more serious problem than in Europe.
Street vending is rampant in Addis Ababa and they include foods products, second hand clothes, shoes, vegetables and fruits, electrical equipments, equipments used for beautification, equipments used for household purpose, and stationary materials, cigarettes, sweets, belts, umbrellas, shoe sols, soaps, watches, dry cells and even begging.
The major problem identified was unemployment, poverty and an attempt to establish a source of income for purposes of livelihood. However, the researcher discovered that vending was a risk activity because vendors were illegal and were always harassed by police and established businessmen.
These are street vendors. They are lined up preparing for their day. They mostly sell “Mefaqya” – a natural tooth brush – while some also cell airtime for cellphones ( the sign you see on the back of the first guy spells out “airtime available”).
All images are copyrighted by reEthiopia
Even though the project might not have taken off for long, it was still absolutely was worth doing. I personally enjoyed the process as did Brook I hope. Meeting photography enthusiasts like Brook online and discussing, making something together was fascinating for me. I hope we can work and create something together again.
By the end of this project, Brook kindly asked me if he could interview me – I couldn’t refuse, so if you have another 5 minutes, go ahead to this link and you can read about how I got into photography and more 🙂
Thank you for reading, stay creative and till next time
Yuri
We are honored by this. Thank you for Livelihood and the collaboration it has brought us. It was great working with you.
Dear readers, stay tuned as we bring you another collaboration project.
Great post Yuri
Thank you too and till the next one 🙂
Street vending, if managed well, cannot be a problem. It’s a livelihood for many and a color to the city.
Beautifully put. The ‘ugly’ that one sees at a short glance is far more intricately captivating for those of us who find ‘beauty’ in meaning, purpose and process of struggle to win a ‘battle’; all we see then is interpreted in vibrant and gloomy colours, shadow and light, perky and sad, half-full and half-empty, complete and barren, lively and livelier in its own capsule we call ‘livelihood’. In a strange way, when identified like this, street vending becomes a mobile art seen to those seeking a new way of scouting art.
Art in the sense of awakening, that is
this year i wanted to flight to Ethiopia again – for one week, exactly like one year ago, but looks i have no time and too busy with my work now. i love to see these familiar scenes from Ethiopia.