African Ark

Book excerpt: The Horn of Africa is one of the last secret regions of the world. African Ark is the photographic documentary of a perilous five-year journey recording the customs of many peoples whose lands and heritage have since been irretrievably lost to war and famine. Starting with the Christian Amharas of Lalibela and Axum, the two photographers traverse a perilous arc that takes them to the seacoast of Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia and as far south as Lamu in Kenya, and finally to the remote peoples of the southeast of the Horn who still engage in stick-fighting, scarification and the wearing of lip-plates. Their travels also take them to the lands of the desert-dwelling Afar and Rashaida peoples, of the Somali nomads of Ogaden and the Oromo pilgrims of the Bale mountains. African Ark is a rich record of an 'ark' that shelters a wide variety of landscapes and human societies.