Bairro Amado
The Safende neighbourhood, also known as “Bairro Amado”, in Cape Verde, was born in the 70’s from the spontaneous occupation caused by the rural exodus and the growing of the City of Praia. Besides the rural migrants, the cape verdean refugees coming from Angola, result of the Portuguese decolonization, were also the first residents of the neighbourhood.
Since then, social inequalities and poverty arises and the lack of basic commodities inevitably triggers conflict, violence, robberies, drug consumption and attacks between gangs, to a point that the neighbourhood starts to be called Chechenia in the 90’s.
From 2012 onwards a group of residents, mainly youngsters, joined forces to fight the violence, working together with the community and mediating the conflicts. Today the Safende neighbourhood is considered a safe suburb of the City of Praia and is kindly called “The Loved neighbourhood”.
Over my stay in the City of Praia, back in May 2021 during pandemic, I got in touch with the history of “Bairro Amado” when working on a parallel project in Safende. The resilient commitment of their inhabitants in the growth and development of the community spirit as well as their effort of building strong relationships and mutual support to minimize the borough adversities, sparked my will of portraying them and its surroundings. In this series, the photos create a symbiose between the portraits of the inhabitants pictured in the streets of their beloved neighbourhood with details of this evolving area, interconnecting them through the diptychs here shown.
