Oikos. An Ethiopian singsong

• Prize
• Photographer
  Marina Berardi, Italy

Oikos is a sound, is home, is ecology. In Ethiopia I met the sweet
symphony that made the look a sound. Oikos is a singsong glimpse into
an apparently ordered horizon, a horizon that belongs to the complex
vision of an intense life participation.
The rites of passage are important sequences that men puts in place to
cross the liminal zone, of transit that the individuals must cross to mark
the transition from one phase, such as childhood, to a subsequent one,
such as adulthood. The world known until that moment is going to be
replaced by another one. The community organizes, through ritualized
ceremonies, his coming into the new world in the new existential
landscape. The Jumping Bull, Ukli Bula, is a ritual ceremony performed
by Hamer people in Ethiopia. This ceremony marks the passage of men
who are of marriageable age.

Born in the small town of Grassano, located in southern Italy,
Marina moved to Rome where she also graduated in Cultural Anthropology and where she still lives today.

Photography comes into her life as a strong passion and as a medium with strong ethno-anthropological connotations.

Awards 2014 Sony World Photography: Commended in the People category in the Open Competition;
Winner of Nikon Talents 2013;
First prize to Nikon Talents 2013: category Street and reportage