#7 JASON FLORIO 9/11 TO AFRICA
I’m not sure why I haven’t suggested this before, but if you have the time and inclination, can I suggest that you search up Jason Florio or click on the links in the show notes and take in his imagery both stills and in motion, then come back and listen to the voice of the man behind the palpable photographic stories you’ll find. Or open a separate browser perhaps and journey through the pictures this extraordinary photographer has made, WHILE you listen to this episode.
I spent some time in 2018 in The Gambia, two short filming trips to work on a political documentary. It was my first time in this small African state on the west coast and I arrived in a country that was not long released from an oppressive regime under a leader called Yahya Jammeh, who ruled over Africa’s smallest country with an increasing questionable approach to human rights through extra-Judcial killings and forced disappearances, torture, and as has been well documented, the purloining of state assets.
Just over two decades before he’d taken leadership in a bloodless mutiny turned coup and promised to rid the country of a self serving government and ironically corruption.
22 years later his estranged fleet of luxury cars and private jets is sat gathering Harmattan dust after he fled the country with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, perfectly demonstrating just how much his initial manifesto faltered, yet still you’ll find supporters keen to see him return for his publicly promised billion year reign.
During that period, The Gambia’s tourist industry remained active, and plane loads of visitors arrived, many seemingly unaware of the political and social difficulties this sun blessed and outwardly friendly country had. They arrived to frequent sun loungers behind walled hotel complexes, whilst beyond those boundaries, anyone who dared speak unwisely ran the risk of imprisonment, beatings and often worse.
You might think this a strange place then for someone to choose as a base, someone who had a habit of telling the truth through pictures; a respected award-winning photojournalist who has produced bodies of work for The New York Times, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Geographical and Amnesty International.
To quote from his biography, Jason Florio’s focus has been towards under-reported stories about people living on the margins of society and human rights. His work has been recognised with a number of awards, including The Magnum Photography Award 2017 for his raw pictorial stories on migration. He was the first recipient of the Aperture Foundation grant to produce Aperture’s first ever assigned story, ‘This is Libya’.
It’s little wonder that photographs of his reside in a number of public and private collections and his solo and joint exhibitions worldwide have been greeted by enthusiasm and celebration.
And so choosing to move to The Gambia in 2013 with Jammeh still very much in control, might have seemed a precarious decision to an outsider looking in, but as you’ll find out in the next hour, it was to lead to a jigsawing of opportunities and stories that eventually led to some of Jason’s strongest work in the Mediterranean, pulling young Africans from the clutches of a cold winter Aegean.
This recounted journey and short documentary about Jason Florio, photographer, film maker, humanitarian, starts in 2001 in New York, on what would usually be just another blue sky late Summer, early fall morning.
Photographs used with permission of the photographer Jason Florio, all rights reserved.
FURTHER REFERENCE
Jason Florio’s main website
Instagram feed
Lens Culture feature on Jason Florio