2018 / People / Culture

Plastic Maasai

  • Photographer
    Tobias Hildebrandt
  • Agency / Studio
    Tobias Hildebrandt Photography

Zanzibar, an island with a long history and a rich culture. When you approach touristic places, hotels or the beach, you notice the huge number of male Maasai, serving as security staff in hotels or just being beach boys, selling carvings, paintings, gems or their body. But most of them aren't real Maasai or grew up on Zanzibar. Young men, mostly coming from mainland Tanzania, dressed up as Maasai to meet the expectations tourists from Europe have, when they come to the African continent. False expectations, created by books and movies that paint a wrong picture of Africa and male africans.

Early photographic section lines - the father lets him participate soon to your own photo reportage work and the preparation of the photo processing lab. However, out of this youg years imprint he developed his very own point of view in the photographic documentation of his environment. The approach and the confrontation with humans, whom he perceives and scans, remains important motivation. Formal and structural images form another major focus of his photographic works. They also refect the recovered vision as an former architect and designer. Exhibitions in AT, DE, CH, CN, IT, KR