How U Dey?

How U Dey?, "How is it going?" in Pidgin English, is a project that documents the personal journey of 15 immigrants from Nigeria toward Europe. Their journey came to an end in august 2011 when they approached the coasts of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea marking the beginning of their new life.
The project gives a face, a name and a story to some of the people that migrated from Nigeria all the way up to Italy in a journey that, in some cases, lasted for years. The portraits and monologues contained in the project narrate dreams, perils, illusions, events and tragedies that marked the life of the protagonists of this publication.
Italian Civil Protection in 2011 instituted the project Emergenza Nord Africa, ENA, (North Africa Emergency) with the aim of offering a solution to the humanitarian crisis that was taking place in the Mediterranean Sea. Between June and August 2011 - and all across 2012 - the Italian Navy rescued more than 30.000 people hosting them within a political refugees program that has no equal in the history of modern Europe.
A group of 30 people was sent to the province of Arezzo for a total of 2 years. We spend with them more than 6 months in order to document what they just witnessed in Nigeria and Libya.
The work features 12 portraits and 12 monologues, in English and Italian. We chose to follow a coherent line of narration that intersects portraits and text telling the same story but from two different perspectives.
We felt it was important to look at immigration from an individual point of view in order to give a human face to a phenomenon that is most of the time the object of political exploitation and demystification. We hope that with this publication we will contribute to a deeper comprehension of the phenomenon of immigration in Europe.

Photographs on this set were taken in a temporary accommodation for immigrants near Arezzo (Tuscany) from april through october 2012.