04 / 09 / 2008
Enrico Dagnino: About tribal conflicts
Enrico confesses he came to photography thanks to a very good friend of him who asked him one day what he was interested in. His first answer at the age of 18 was “girls”. She then told him she knew a better way to do something with his life. She showed him a polaroïd camera and they both started playing with it and Enrico knew at that moment that he wanted to go on taking photographs.
He started working in advertising, doing studio and still life pictures. During the week end, he would try to take “news” pictures and sell them to local newspapers.
Thanks to some friends working in a café who accepted to give him some money, he could go to Germany and cover the fall of the wall of Berlin.
Success started at that period and he then could easily cover events such as the wars in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, or the invasion of Afghanistant and Iraq.
Enrico was not a complete stranger when he went to Kenya to have his report about the post-electoral conflicts in the beginning of 2008. He knows Africa and was sent there before by Paris Match to report about AIDS and shantytowns. He therefore had a network of journalists, former friends or inhabitants who could help him.
Enrico is very critical when it comes talking about the political ans social situation in Kenya. “This whole conflict is orchestred by dubious politicians.”
What happened in Nairobi was that partisans of Raïla Odinga, candidate of the Luo ethnic group and partisans of Mwai Kibaki, now president and chief of the Kikuyus ethnic group violently confronted. Kibaki is suspected of having falsifyed the elections and stolen lands. Also, the Luo group accuse the Kikuyus group of abusing of their dominant situation.
“Their fight is fair, not are their means” sadly says Enrico when he is asked about what he thinks about all this tribal war.
Enrico’s photographs are exhibited in the Couvent des minimes and one can watch violent and chocking images which correctly reflects what truly and sadly occured in Nairobi. The photographer strongly underlines that he shoots everything he can without any censorship.
Jim Lefeuvre.