Cuba Reconnected

For much of the last 60 years Cuba has been one of the most disconnected and isolated countries in the Western hemisphere. Citizens were unable to travel abroad, information and news completely government controlled, and the internet was so tightly controlled that barely anyone was allowed to use it. In 2001 only 1% of the population had access to the internet, all of whom had direct permission from the state.

Since Raul Castro assumed the presidential office in 2008 he has slowly reduced some stringent restrictions within the economy, but the internet was not initially one of them. It wasn't until 2013 that Cuba had its first public internet cafes, but at around $6-10 an hour to use, it was exorbitantly expensive for most. The average wage in Cuba is around $20 a month.

It's only since late 2015 that some Cuban's have felt that the internet could be a reality in their life this was after the government agreed to instal 35 public wifi spots across the country, and reduced access to $2 per hour.

These public spaces, generally parks or squares, have both become hubs of connectivity to the outside world, as well as important communal focus points in towns across Cuba. In the tempered possibilities of slow and censored internet access, Cuban's are finally, and very publicly, being able to engage with exiled relatives, global pop culture, new products and new ideas, but of course still under the watchful eye of the state. Going online in your own private home is still illegal.

Published by HUCK (UK), Internatizonale (Italy)

Tremors Below

Tremors Below deals with the people and landscape of Rustenburg which is home to 90% of the worlds platinum reserves. This vital metal is mined by some of the worlds largest companies and employees over 70,000 people in the area, nearly all of whom were on strike for over four months in the longest workers struggle South Africa has seen. As well as the ongoing strike, it was the fourth presidential elections this year, and mid August was the 2nd year anniversary of the Marikana massacre in which the police killed 34 striking miners.

As well as revisiting that horrific moment in South Africa’s history, which has been largely distorted across the world, we explored the environment in which these miners live and work within, the political unease at the ANC and the newer political groups which have been making some serious headway with the miners and their families. It’s a story that deals with much of what is going wrong in South Africa’s economy and political environment, and how much of the population is still left by the sidelines waiting for real change to take place.

Funded by The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting (USA). Published in The Guardian Weekend Magazine (UK), Internazionale (Italy), The New Yorker (USA), Rhodes Journalism Review (South Africa), FotoGraf (Czech Republic)

Aral Sea: Mistake Of Nature

Deep within the bizarre confluence of ruler-straight lines and flamboyant squiggles that make up the map of Central Asia lies a former Soviet republic called Karakalpakstan, a semi-autonomous enclave of Uzbekistan. This vast stretch of land was the site of one of the twentieth century's most horrific environmental disasters - the disappearance of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water. Karakalpakstan bears the scars of the Aral catastrophe everywhere; the old seabed has turned into the world's youngest desert, the fishing industry collapsed devastating the local economy, farmers have seen their crops wither away, and the rate of respiratory diseases amongst the beleaguered population has spiralled.

But this isn't your typical tale of ecological mayhem. What's fascinating about Karakalpakstan is its political dynamic; long under the thumb of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, a nascent current of nationalism is slowly beginning to creep through the Karakalpak people, some of whom are beginning to demand outright independence from Tashkent. Those in Karakalpakstan that aren't choosing to resist the Karimov regime are by and large leaving en masse, escaping across the border to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Conservative estimates suggest 10% of the population has melted away in the past decade, with people exploiting the complex tangle of ethnic backgrounds in the region to gain citizenship elsewhere.

Commissioned by The National (UAE). Published in Internazionale (Italy), Prospect (UK), Geographical Magazine (UK), E-Magazine (USA), The Sunday Times Magazine (UK)

SOUQ EL GOMMA

“A city within a city, built in the morning light, and which disappears with the last of the day. An infinite and intertwining network of commerce colliding for just a few hours a week.” ‘Invisible City’ Italo Calvino.

This story is an exploration of the myriad people, objects and spaces that make up Cairo’s Souq El-Gomma, the Middle East’s largest informal market gathering. Every Friday this trading metropolis materialises, with no formal direction or control, no one idea and ultimately no boundaries, it encompasses the aperture between the living city and the city of the dead. Colonised by the economically marginalised the trade is in the detritus of the city, here Cairo’s flotsam and jetsam is sorted, salvaged and sold on. This organic and dynamic entity offers up a window into the lives of other people and more fundamentally a window into the life of the city itself.

Commissioned by The National M Magazine. Published in Sowar Magazine, Ojopedez.

In the Footsteps Of Harding King

There is a tree in the middle of Dakhla oasis which, according to some locals, possesses a soul. They call it the tree of Sheikh Adam, and it has stood for centuries at the heart of one million square miles of vast, almost waterless isolation, a space once considered to be amongst the most inhospitable places on the planet. A British scientist and explorer W.J. Harding-King reached this spot in 1909 and declared the tree to be a symbol of everything magical about the desert, “a land where afrits, ghuls, genii and all the other creatures of native superstitions are matters of everyday occurrence; where lost oases and enchanted cities lie in the desert sands.”

A land of lost legends is being slowly turned, house by house, road by road, into the most improbable of solutions to Egypt's rapidly-escalating population crisis. The Cairo-based government is aiming to turn over three million acres of arid ground into green farmland over the next decade, and provide a home for up to 19 million Egyptians along the way. Nothing less than an entire new valley of life is being scheduled to rise, phoenix-like, from the sand.

It will be the country’s biggest construction project since the pyramids, cost billions of dollars, and according to many scientists, is so bold as to be completely unachievable. Metamorphosing beyond all recognition the ‘untouched’ wilderness of the Western Desert that Dr Harding-King stepped into one hundred years ago, which forms the eastern fringe of the Sahara and spans parts of Egypt, Libya and Sudan. On the centenary of his remarkable expedition, we followed in his footsteps to find a forgotten hinterland in flux.

Commissioned by FT Weekend Magazine. Published in Internazionale (Italy), Geographical, The National Review