DEMERGER


  • Photographer
    Wawrzyniec Kolbusz
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    2012 and 2013
  • Technical Info
    analogue scanned

DEMERGER (A strory from North Sudan) project began in 2012 and is still continued. It grew out of the aerial photographic documentation, carried out for the archaeological mission of the Polish Academy of Sciences, currently operating in the rescue action preceding dam construction on the Third and Fifth Cataract on the Nile. Polish team of archaeologists, like many teams from other countries, have already participated in a similar excavations during Merowe dam construction at the Fourth Cataract.

Story

Disintegration of Sudan into two countries, forced by China and Western powers, results in far-reaching consequences for the environment throughout the Horn of Africa. The changes affect not only the environment and economics, but also cultural traditions. Northern Sudan, after loss of a large portion of the revenues from oil in the borderland with South, is desperately looking for new sources of income. It includes building of series of dams on the Nile to acquire hydroelectricity. As a result, water reservoirs start to occupy agricultural land - the only fertile belt along the Nile, enriched every year by the river mud. This causes the necessity to resettle people living along shores and to find for them new sources of income. Peaceful protests of those who doesn’t support dam construction are bloodily suppressed by the state. Resettlement is also affecting the ethnic structure, since conducted mainly in areas inhabited by minorities.
Not only the government (backed by the Chinese and Western construction companies) and farmers are taking part in the race for the land, before its flooded by water. Also gold seekers and archaeologists join the race. Economic turmoil caused by the state demerger and the increase in the price of gold on world markets attract people from other areas of Sudan, who as a result of their mass actions, transform the land into hundreds of open pit mines. Archaeologists are coming to take part in the rescue action to unearth and save traces of past civilizations before the water comes. They are attracted by the partage – a non-existent outside of the Sudan system, that allows to export part of excavated artifacts to the home museums. Archaeologists, though generally well-liked and respected in Sudan, are seen as the vanguard of the dam construction and welcomed with suspicion. Excavation works have become the catalyst for the protests.
Despite co-existence within the same space, all of them refer to different values and construct different narrations to confirm the importance of their actions. Although they share the same subjective treatment of space, they reveal different approaches to the land and its resources. They experience the same space, but live different times. Archaeologists recognize themselves and self-assure need to maintain their work through construction of the narration of rescue and protection of the past. This is based on the Western philosophy that material traces of the past are important for the preservation of cultural continuity and tradition. Their everyday live is the past day of Sudan. People from places in which research is carried are strongly placed within the present, they want to maintain the status quo, and above all, stop the inevitable changes caused by the dam construction. They are not interested in the past and the remnants of older civilizations among which they live. They appreciate present time and traditional farming. In contrary, government, construction companies and gold seekers are focused on the future time which, they hope, will bring the payback of the their current investments

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