Alixandra Fazzina A Million Shillings – Escape from Somalia
Somali refugees departing Shimbiro Beach to board smugglers’ boats to Yemen. Looking back anxiously as they try to locate friends and relatives, a group of Somali refugees stand in choppy, shoulder-deep water as they board a smuggler’s vessel at a remote beach in Somalia. Only eleven of the people who took this boat were to ever reach Yemen alive. Shimbero, Somalia, April-December 2008.
Artist's Statement
Across the Horn of Africa, war, disorder, abuse and poverty make millions miserable and drive thousands to attempt to flee. With land borders cut off or closed, and surrounded by conflict on all sides, one of the only means of escape is by sea.
This series is presented in the book A Million Shillings (Trolley 2010) and follows the journey of desperate emigrants, or tahrib, to their embarkation points with smugglers on the coast of Somalia, on a perilous voyage across the Gulf of Aden, and onward in the search for a better life.
The cost is just $50, or one million Somali shillings. With a one in twenty chance of not making it to the other side alive, it is a price they must risk their lives for. Even then, it is a journey which for many will remain unfinished.
About the artist 01 2165
1974, United Kingdom
British
London, United Kingdom
About verification 2165 Alixandra Fazzina
Alixandra Fazzina focuses with her photography on under-reported conflicts and the often-forgotten humanitarian consequences of war. She began her career as a war artist in Bosnia while studying fine art. Since then, she has worked independently as a photojournalist throughout Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Fazzina’s reportages have been widely published in the British and international press and her photographs exhibited worldwide. She was a finalist in the CARE Award for Humanitarian Reportage and the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography in 2008 for her work in Somalia. That same year, she received the Vic Odden Award from the British Royal Photographic Society. She has also been recognised as the winner of the highly prestigious UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award (2010).
Disorder Shortlist
Valérie Belin, Still Life, 2014
Ilit Azoulay, Imaginary Order, 2012-2014
Matthew Brandt, Honeybees, 2009-2012
Maxim Dondyuk, Culture of the Confrontation, 2014
Alixandra Fazzina, A Million Shillings – Escape from Somalia, 2008
Ori Gersht, Blow Up, 2009
John Gossage, Should Nature Change, 2010-2014
Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, 2009-2010
Gideon Mendel, Drowning World, 2008-2014
Sophie Ristelhueber, Eleven Blowups, 2006
Brent Stirton, A Violation of Eden, 2007-2014
Yang Yongliang, Artificial Wonderland, 2014