The Ballad of Silent Seeds

The Ballad of Silent Seeds is a story about the lives and the environment of the burkinabè women of the village of Pargou, a peasants community living and working in the southern-east countryside.

I’ve been always persuaded that our way to get in contact with matter happens through filters. I’ve hardly ever made what I needed and most of the time I am not aware of where the things I consume and own come from or are made of. The truth is, I’ve always been provided with the final product, and that is what I know. Everyday life in some countries is well organized into a chain of orderly filters and mediations and people have learned to work through them. Sometimes I wonder how the world around me would change if we all were left alone to deal only with raw matter. What about if the only filter between ourselves and the physical reality were our bodies and the ability to directly manipulate things?

Women have a leading role in the way reality is arranged in Burkina Faso. Their constant activity of re-combining and manipulating raw materials subverts the consumeristic logic and creates a kind of energy that has an impact on objects, spaces, and bodies. Everything seems to hold a certain anarchic vibration and autonomy to freely move and position itself in whatever place, without following a pre-arranged scheme or compartment. There’s no point to search things on the same shelf I have been always accustomed to, as now my strict concept of order has been replaced with an unbound ballad.

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
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Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

© Federica Landi - Pargou village, Burkina Faso
i

Pargou village, Burkina Faso

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