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“And I will make the rivers dry” is a photographic work dedicated to the great territorial and social changes in one of the poorest areas of Kenya: the Turkana county.
In the north-east area of Kenya, where a soft drink costs less than water, there is Lake Turkana, the largest permanent lake in a semi-desert area. It is one of the most alkaline lake in the world.
It is a closed basin and all the water that is poured tends to evaporate. This is due to the high temperatures, constantly increasing because of the impact of the climate phenomena.
The area of Turkana is one of the most affected by climate change, with average temperatures that increased by 2,5 C° in the last ten years.
This area is inhabited by 1,2 million people and most of them are fishermen that fight against drought. This lake represents their main source of supply.
Desertification, drought, floods and forced displacement, water pollution and the local economy to its knees. What will be the future of the Turkana Lake?
Fausto Podavini was born in Rome, where he currently lives and works. After graduating from the Technical Institute of Electronics, he received his Master’s degree in Reportage at the Photography Academy “John Kaverdash” in Milan. He began his photographic journey first as an assistant and studio photographer, to approach gradually photo-reportage.
Podavini has also been part of MIFAV Tor Vergata University, where got to know and been in contact with many photographers. After abandoning studio photography to devote himself exclusively to reportage, he started to work as a freelance, collaborating with various non-profit organization for the realization of reportage in Italy, Peru, Kenya and Ethiopia, where he is currently pursuing some personal photo projects.
He collaborates with the Collective WSP as a photographer and as a teacher of photojournalism.
His works have won international awards such as The World Press Photo, POY, Sony, Yves Rocher Grant and have been published in the most important international magazines. He has exhibited in important cities such as New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome.
Water Grabbing Observatory is an association founded to analyze and report social, environmental and economic phenomena linked to water and climate, in Italy and in the world. The Observatory reports the cases of water hoarding and violation of human rights through documentaries, reports and researches starting from the territories and people. We strongly work on communication, impact journalism, research and advocacy and our mission is to realize water worldwide as a human right for all. We realized the book “Water Grabbing – the conflict for water in the XXI century” (italian edition, the english one will be out in 2019) and multimedia reportage published on La Stampa, El Pais, Die Zeit, BioEcoGeo, Geo España, SciDev, Al Jazeera English, Internazionale.