The recyclers

• Prize
• Photographer
  vincenzo floramo, Italy
• Date of Photograph
  online
• Website
  http://www.floramo.it

Along the Thai-Burmese border, the town of Mae Sot has
become a refuge for many Burmese immigrant families.
According to government statistics, there is at least one
million illegal Burmese nationals working in Thailand. This status and the lack of connection forces many people to live at large rubbish dump just outside of Mae Sot.
At present, approximately �fty families are living in
bamboo huts built on mountains of waste.
Before the waste arrives at the dump, it already has passed through a double sorting process, which makes it difficult for these families to salvage resalable material.

• Biography
  Vincenzo Floramo, Was born in Trieste, Italy in 1968. After completing his studies at the Technical Industrial Institute, he began to live a nomadic life between Asia, South America, North America and Europe, which still continues. He has been committed to exploring, learning, connecting with and photographing the diverse expressions of human experiences that he encounters within these varied cultures. In 2002 he worked as a photographers assistant at Uta Tabea Marten in Berlin, Germany and in 2004 he attended the Metropolis photography school in Madrid, Spain. Recently he was present to a photojournalism workshop lead by the photographers Francesco Zizola and Lorenzo Maccotta in Italy. For the last few years he has been spending most of his time in India and Thailand where he has become involved with several groups. In Thailand he has spent extended periods of time living in the refugee camps, getting to know and photographing the Burmese there. With this project he collaborated with Amnesty Internationalâ??s magazine in Denmark, and exhibits his pictures in Barcelona and Madrid. In India he has become intimately involved with the customs, celebrations, institutions, and street life people of Varanasi. He presently lives between Spain,Denmark and South East Asia.