ENTRY DESCRIPTION
August 30, 2007 - ILAKAKA, MADAGASCAR :

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.

Vazaha (White people) or affluent malagasy families are in general the owner of these quarries. The base pay of these diggers is between 3000 and 4000 ariary (1,5 and 2 euros) a day.

AUTHOR
Rijasolo, was born in France in 1973.
In 2004, he went back to Madagascar, the country of his roots, which he had not visited for 20 years. With the help of a local council in Brittany, he set up photography workshops for young people in the town of Antsiranana (Diego Suarez). At the same time he started a wandering work called “MIVERINA”, in which he strove to show how difficult it was to regain an intimate relationship with Madagascar.
His selection at the 2005 Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako gave him the confidence he need to work as a full-time photographer.
In December 2006, he embarked on a photojournalism course in Paris (EMI-CFD).
He was a reporter-photographer for the Wostok Press agency during the 2007 French presidential campaign, and in November of the same year, went on to set up RIVA PRESS (www.riva-press.com) in association with four photojournalists concerned with maintaining an independent view. Since he collaborates with french newspapers and magazines as Libération, Le Monde, VSD or Jeune Afrique whose is the correspondent for the Indian Ocean area.
In 2010, he won the 1st prize of Leica 35 mm wide angle contest.
In 2011, Rijasolo decided to return living in Madagascar where he focuses on reportage and corporate. Since 2012 he is AFP stringer as photographer.
In 2013, He published his first book of photography “Madagascar, nocturnes” (no comment® editions) about nightlife in Madagascar.

Rijasolo lives and works at Antananarivo, Madagascar.

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