PHOTO « Ilakaka, saphire city » n°1

© Rijasolo

Photographer since 2001 and freelance since 2007, Rijasolo co-founded Riva Press, an association of photographers established in 2007 by 5 photojournalists (with Vincent Boisot, Vincent Capman, Vincent Nguyen and Vincent Wartner) working on current events and features.
His personal website www.rijasolo.com is a more personal vision of his encounters and trips around the world.

In 1998, a peasant in the village of Ilakaka in southern Madagascar discovered that there was a large quantity of sapphire under the ground. In the space of a few days, thousands of men and women had come to set up camp, hoping to dig up a few grams of this precious stone from the ground and make their fortune. Today, Ilakaka has become a boomtown of wooden shacks haphazardly clustered around Highway 7. According to the local authorities, around 20,000 people live in Ilakaka, although this figure is only an estimate.
Over the last few years, Thais, Sri-Lankans, Europeans and Americans have also settled in Ilakaka. Familiar with this type of business, they know that there is an international market for this particular sapphire, whose quality is said to be the best in the world. Geologists estimate that the Madagascan deposit, one of the world’s largest, will be exploitable for another fifty years.

Photo date: August 2007
Print: 50x70cm, ink jet print (Epson plotter) total edition of 1.
Dibon mounting
Print date: February 2009

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