With the awakening of nationalist sentiments, in Europe the urgency to preserve national identity burns along borders but also inside, forcing minorities into ghettos. Like wounds, these need to be healed, prevented from infecting what is around them, closed. ?Roma people are in 2019 more than 11 million, and Stolipinovo, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, is today the biggest Roma ghetto in Europe. In contrast with a strong community-based culture, its alleged 75000 people live in squalid decay and daily social emergency. Stolipinovo is a portrait of systematic discrimination in Europe in our century.
Italian freelance photojournalist. With a background in grassroots activism, her work spans issues relating to social justice, anthropology, human rights, feminism, the environment, and food production. Selene was raised in the Italian Dolomites and now lives between London and Berlin. Her belief in research, slow journalism and an ethos of political participation informs her approach to documentary projects. Photography is for her a political tool.
