FADE AWAY
BY MICHELE PALAZZI
During the past decade, China is experiencing the largest internal migration in its history, involving especially the minorities living in the remote areas of the country. In Guizhou, the poorest province of the China, two million people, mostly from the Miao minority, are being pushed, through economic incentives, to leave their villages situated in isolated mountain and to be relocated into neighborhoods in urban cities, specifically built for them. This ongoing relocation, started in 2012 is expected to end by 2020, according to the local government it will allow the villagers to alleviate their poverty conditions.
The photographic project analyze the loss of identity of the people who chose to abandon their household surrounding themselves of a new extraneous environment, portraying also the daily rural life of those who decided to resist in a traditional world, where everything around them is rapidly fading away.
Biography
The italian photographer Michele Palazzi (b.1984) works with current social issues through a subjective approach, confronting the contemporary man with his origins, through a look that investigates the past in order to interpret the present. He has won several recognitions, among which the First Prize of the World Press Photo Award in the category Daily Life - Stories.
He is currently working on FINISTERRAE, a long term project concerning the southern European crisis and he works as a photography teacher at the Rome University of Fine Arts.
michelepalazziphotographer.com
instagram.com/michele_palazzi/