Photo © Salah Benacer
Talent of the Year 2020 - NOMINEE: Salah Benacer
The Berikas, "bandits" of the road.
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If you drive through the Georgian Caucasus in winter, you are sure to be stopped by men in the road. Armed with stick or a plastic sword, they waylay your car and ask for money, cigarettes or alcohol.
They are called the Berikas.
From poor backgrounds in rural areas, they adopt elements of a pagan Georgian ritual, the Berikaoba, to earn a living. Every year, from early January to mid-March, they take to the roads and block the traffic to ask for money. The proceeds, shared out equally, are used to buy seeds, land, farming equipment, a car…
A Berika can make up to 1,500 euros in a month – three times the entry-level salary of an IT worker in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital. This figure is falling yearly, say the Berikas. Some drivers give them booze, apples, chocolate, cigarettes and even hens.
For the rest of the year, the Berikas work as farmers, bricklayers, painters… Most have children. The oldest is 68, the youngest 24. One has been a Berika for 40 years, and his father was a Berika before him.
In the Soviet era, a group could consist of up to 20 people, compared to five or six nowadays. The Berikas used to travel with a donkey from village to village, celebrating springtime and the coming harvests. They used to be given a police escort, but now the police move them on, due to complaints from drivers in a hurry.
They dart constantly between the cars, but casualties are rare, although some of them have been knocked over. Some Georgians take a poor view of these traffic-stopping Berikas, considering them to be good-for-nothings.
The Berikaoba ritual that inspires the Berikas is a procession featuring a woman called Kekela and her suitor, who, after several attempts, persuades her to marry him. As the legend has it, their happiness is short lived, interrupted by "Tartars" who kill the husband and abduct Kekela. The Berikas try to revive him with herbs, but only succeed when they tell him of the abduction. The husband takes to the road, finds his wife and brings her back to their village. The following night, great festivities are held.
Today, the procession takes place in only a few villages in eastern Georgia: the farmers, in hope of good harvests, celebrate Kekela while also commemorating the painful memory of the successive invasions of the country. Men chosen by a committee of fellow villagers dress up in sheepskins and unsettling masks. One Sunday morning, they charge through the village brandishing whips, banging on doors, and climbing over the walls round houses to demand food and wine. They are eagerly awaited by the villagers; then together, everyone drinks many toasts to Kekela's memory, and to recently deceased relatives.
Salah Benacer
The word Berikaoba stems from the word for "child" (Ber), which is strongly connected to fertility. The ritual is part of Georgia's cultural heritage.
About author:
Salah Benacer
What led Salah Benacer to become a photographer was a life project: regaining contact with a world he had observed when younger, while living abroad with its parents. When he had discovered the immigrant workers' hostel where Kamat, the family's cleaner, lived, far from his family, he had the feeling, which has never left him, that some people, "disinherited" by life at birth, are sure to retain indelible scars of injustice and suffering; that they are more likely to fall, once and for all, than to get back on their feet.
Those are the people Salah Benacer has chosen to feature in his photography.
For many years he has taken photographs, in black and white and in square format, of men and women who, in spite of their constraints, are trying to change the course of their life.
In Antoby, Madagascar, in an asylum where the Lutherian community cares for mentally disabled people with the available resources. In Nadezhda, Bulgaria, where the Roma community, walled up in a ghetto, recreates a life inside to survive various forms of discrimination. On Piémanson Beach, in France, where, for four months of the year, groups form to live a utopian life based on sharing and community.
Salah Benacer embeds himself over time with the people he photographs, sharing with them this feeling of resilience.
Now aged 53, he is continuing this in-depth endeavour begun in 2002.
In 2006 he received the Prix de la Bourse du Talent, and some of his images are held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
AWARDS
2006 Prix de la Bourse du Talent (Reportage)
EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTIONS
2018 Exhibition of La Plage, Festival d'Ansouis, France.
2017 Exhibition of Inclose and La Plage, Traversées film festival, Lunel.
2015 Exhibition of Inclose, La Sirène, Bordeaux.
2015 Exhibition of Inclose, African Film Festival, Apt.
2014 Exhibition of Les Fous d'Antoby, 10th Angkor Photo Festival, Cambodia.
2014 Projection of Les 24 Chambres, Les Nuits Photographiques, Pierrevert.
2013 Projection at Les Voies Off of Les Fous d'Antoby for the 15th anniversary of the Bourse du Talent, Arles.
2013 Round table on photography, Maison de la Photographie, Toulon, France.
2007 Projection of Les Fous d’Antoby, Les Promenades Photographiques festival, Vendôme.
2007 Projection of the Nadezhda report, Festival Sala Montjuic – Picture Tank, Barcelone.
2006 Projection of the Nadezhda report, Visa pour l’Image Off – Picture Tank, Perpignan.
2006 Exhibition of Inclose at Picto Bastille, Paris.
2006 Exhibition at Lianzhou International Photo Festival, China.
2003 Walk on the Web Side, group exhibition, RIP d’Arles, France.
PUBLICATIONS
2016 La Plage, Editions Pyramyd.
2013 Presentation of Inclose, Aperture Award for Best First Photo Book (Paris Photo).
2013 Presentation of Inclose, Best European Photo Book Award (RIP d’Arles).
2012 Inclose, book on the theme of isolation and confinement.
2008 En mer, voyage photographiques, Editions Glénat (published in France, Germany, UK).
2006 La Normandie des photographes, Editions des Falaises, France.
PUBLIC COLLECTION
2006 Acquisition of 15 prints from Nadezhda by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
REPORTAGE
2020 Je suis un Bérika – road bandits in Georgia, Caucasus.
2015 Les courses – the work of supermarket employees, Bandol.
2014 Bleu de travail – the daily life of quotidien metalworkers, Saint Martin de Crau.
2012 La Plage – dreams and utopia facing the sea, Salins de Giraud.
2010 Les 24 Chambres – the end of workers' shacks, Salins de Giraud.
2008 Le jardin noir – life in Nagorno-Karabakh, a ghost republic in the southern Caucasus.
2005 Nadezhda – discrimination and confinement in a Roma camp, Bulgaria.
2002 Les fous d’Antoby – an asylum treating patients by exorcism, Madagascar.
2001 Le Celtic – itinerary and living conditions of African sailors in France and Togo.
2000 Sam la Star – a travelling photographer in Bamako, Mali.
1997 Les mines d’or du Maramures – manually extracting gold and silver in northern Romania.
They are called the Berikas.
From poor backgrounds in rural areas, they adopt elements of a pagan Georgian ritual, the Berikaoba, to earn a living. Every year, from early January to mid-March, they take to the roads and block the traffic to ask for money. The proceeds, shared out equally, are used to buy seeds, land, farming equipment, a car…
A Berika can make up to 1,500 euros in a month – three times the entry-level salary of an IT worker in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital. This figure is falling yearly, say the Berikas. Some drivers give them booze, apples, chocolate, cigarettes and even hens.
For the rest of the year, the Berikas work as farmers, bricklayers, painters… Most have children. The oldest is 68, the youngest 24. One has been a Berika for 40 years, and his father was a Berika before him.
In the Soviet era, a group could consist of up to 20 people, compared to five or six nowadays. The Berikas used to travel with a donkey from village to village, celebrating springtime and the coming harvests. They used to be given a police escort, but now the police move them on, due to complaints from drivers in a hurry.
They dart constantly between the cars, but casualties are rare, although some of them have been knocked over. Some Georgians take a poor view of these traffic-stopping Berikas, considering them to be good-for-nothings.
The Berikaoba ritual that inspires the Berikas is a procession featuring a woman called Kekela and her suitor, who, after several attempts, persuades her to marry him. As the legend has it, their happiness is short lived, interrupted by "Tartars" who kill the husband and abduct Kekela. The Berikas try to revive him with herbs, but only succeed when they tell him of the abduction. The husband takes to the road, finds his wife and brings her back to their village. The following night, great festivities are held.
Today, the procession takes place in only a few villages in eastern Georgia: the farmers, in hope of good harvests, celebrate Kekela while also commemorating the painful memory of the successive invasions of the country. Men chosen by a committee of fellow villagers dress up in sheepskins and unsettling masks. One Sunday morning, they charge through the village brandishing whips, banging on doors, and climbing over the walls round houses to demand food and wine. They are eagerly awaited by the villagers; then together, everyone drinks many toasts to Kekela's memory, and to recently deceased relatives.
Salah Benacer
The word Berikaoba stems from the word for "child" (Ber), which is strongly connected to fertility. The ritual is part of Georgia's cultural heritage.
About author:
Salah Benacer
What led Salah Benacer to become a photographer was a life project: regaining contact with a world he had observed when younger, while living abroad with its parents. When he had discovered the immigrant workers' hostel where Kamat, the family's cleaner, lived, far from his family, he had the feeling, which has never left him, that some people, "disinherited" by life at birth, are sure to retain indelible scars of injustice and suffering; that they are more likely to fall, once and for all, than to get back on their feet.
Those are the people Salah Benacer has chosen to feature in his photography.
For many years he has taken photographs, in black and white and in square format, of men and women who, in spite of their constraints, are trying to change the course of their life.
In Antoby, Madagascar, in an asylum where the Lutherian community cares for mentally disabled people with the available resources. In Nadezhda, Bulgaria, where the Roma community, walled up in a ghetto, recreates a life inside to survive various forms of discrimination. On Piémanson Beach, in France, where, for four months of the year, groups form to live a utopian life based on sharing and community.
Salah Benacer embeds himself over time with the people he photographs, sharing with them this feeling of resilience.
Now aged 53, he is continuing this in-depth endeavour begun in 2002.
In 2006 he received the Prix de la Bourse du Talent, and some of his images are held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
AWARDS
2006 Prix de la Bourse du Talent (Reportage)
EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTIONS
2018 Exhibition of La Plage, Festival d'Ansouis, France.
2017 Exhibition of Inclose and La Plage, Traversées film festival, Lunel.
2015 Exhibition of Inclose, La Sirène, Bordeaux.
2015 Exhibition of Inclose, African Film Festival, Apt.
2014 Exhibition of Les Fous d'Antoby, 10th Angkor Photo Festival, Cambodia.
2014 Projection of Les 24 Chambres, Les Nuits Photographiques, Pierrevert.
2013 Projection at Les Voies Off of Les Fous d'Antoby for the 15th anniversary of the Bourse du Talent, Arles.
2013 Round table on photography, Maison de la Photographie, Toulon, France.
2007 Projection of Les Fous d’Antoby, Les Promenades Photographiques festival, Vendôme.
2007 Projection of the Nadezhda report, Festival Sala Montjuic – Picture Tank, Barcelone.
2006 Projection of the Nadezhda report, Visa pour l’Image Off – Picture Tank, Perpignan.
2006 Exhibition of Inclose at Picto Bastille, Paris.
2006 Exhibition at Lianzhou International Photo Festival, China.
2003 Walk on the Web Side, group exhibition, RIP d’Arles, France.
PUBLICATIONS
2016 La Plage, Editions Pyramyd.
2013 Presentation of Inclose, Aperture Award for Best First Photo Book (Paris Photo).
2013 Presentation of Inclose, Best European Photo Book Award (RIP d’Arles).
2012 Inclose, book on the theme of isolation and confinement.
2008 En mer, voyage photographiques, Editions Glénat (published in France, Germany, UK).
2006 La Normandie des photographes, Editions des Falaises, France.
PUBLIC COLLECTION
2006 Acquisition of 15 prints from Nadezhda by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
REPORTAGE
2020 Je suis un Bérika – road bandits in Georgia, Caucasus.
2015 Les courses – the work of supermarket employees, Bandol.
2014 Bleu de travail – the daily life of quotidien metalworkers, Saint Martin de Crau.
2012 La Plage – dreams and utopia facing the sea, Salins de Giraud.
2010 Les 24 Chambres – the end of workers' shacks, Salins de Giraud.
2008 Le jardin noir – life in Nagorno-Karabakh, a ghost republic in the southern Caucasus.
2005 Nadezhda – discrimination and confinement in a Roma camp, Bulgaria.
2002 Les fous d’Antoby – an asylum treating patients by exorcism, Madagascar.
2001 Le Celtic – itinerary and living conditions of African sailors in France and Togo.
2000 Sam la Star – a travelling photographer in Bamako, Mali.
1997 Les mines d’or du Maramures – manually extracting gold and silver in northern Romania.