Los Guatuzos, Nicaragua.
As sentinels dozens of snow-white herons guard the mouth of the Rio Papaturro, the gateway to the Reserve of Los Guatuzos.
Once a land of uncontacted indigenous tribes, today this complex of rivers, lagoons and tropical rain forests lying on the edge of Costa Rica is a border land with an uncertain future, a heritage that withdraws, under the unremitting blows of the machete.
Here, in this remote and beautiful land, live just few hundreds of people, a community consisting mainly of young families. Marginalized in the suburbs of the big cities, families of farmers settle in these forgotten place, looking for an alternative to life and for land to cultivate, a slow exodus of settlers driven by hunger and by the hope of a better future.
In 2008, for the first time in the history of humanity, the number of people living in the cities surpassed that of those living in rural areas. This even, together with the growing reduction of distances generated by globalization and the Web, contributed to radically alter the perception we have of our planet.
In reality, the percentage of anthropized territory is below 3%; urbanization and megacities are not the solution for all people, neither they are an answer to the search for happiness. That is why we are assisting to a return to nature.
This work aims to tell one of the many stories about man’s eternal search for a place in the world.
We are lost on this planet, awed by the beauty that surrounds us, searching for our place, a home to welcome us, a paradise lost. The simple question this work wants to ponder is: are we still going to be able to live in nature and to find an equilibrium with the environment that surrounds us or is this possibility lost forever?
Andrea Frazzetta was born in Lecce (Italy) in 1977. Few years later he moved to Milan where he studied art and architecture. After graduating he devoted himself entirely to photography, which he used mainly as instrument for discovery and tale-telling. So he started travelling and worked on several photo reports in South America, Africa and in the Mediterranean area.
He usually works for important magazines such as New York Times Magazine, The Times, El Pais Semanal, The Guardian Weekend, The International Herald Tribune, Le Courier International, Courier Japon, D of La Repubblica, L’Espresso, National Geographic Italy.
In 2007 he won the Canon Prize Italian Young Photographer. In 2009 he received the Yann Geffroy Award for his work "Obama Village".
In 2012 he won the PDN photo annual with his work on the African Cinema commissioned by New York Times Magazine. In 2013 is among the winner of the American Photography and the PDN photoannual award.
