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PILGRIM BY SHEIKH HUSSEIN, ETHIOPIA (2/12)
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Colour photograph of a pilgrim at the shrine of Sheikh Hussein in Ethiopia, by Ferrante Ferranti. The city of Sheikh Hussein is named after the tomb of the 13th-century Somali saint of Merca called Sheikh Hussein, who introduced Islam to the Sidamo people living in the area at the time. This shrine is, in the eyes of Ethiopian Muslims, the holiest place in this country.
The artist explores the rites associated with the Elements – water, fire, air – in sanctuaries inhabited by the Spirit. Ablutions and immersions, gestures of purification or prayer of Hindu or Buddhist, Hebrew or Jain, Christian or Muslim faithful, embody matter, and help us to cross the mirrors of appearances to access the Saints of Holies.
Length : 0.39 in / 1 cm
Height : 35.43 in / 90 cm
Width : 23.62 in / 60 cm
Weigth : 2.2 lb / 1 kg
Artist : Ferrante Ferranti
Technique: Digital photography
Support: Pigment print on baryta paper (Canson Fine Art Baritta), laminated on Dibond
Dimensions: 90 x 60 cm
Number of copies: 12 signed and numbered prints
Year: 2008
Inspiration: Within the precincts of Sheikh Hussein’s shrine, a woman appears, collected, almost motionless. His silhouette, simple and dignified, gently stands out from the architecture, as if the body were trying to fade away to make way for the inner act.
Ferrante Ferranti does not capture a spectacular moment, but a presence. The gaze rests on the pilgrim with modesty: a turned back, a humble posture, a direct relationship with the stone. The human figure here becomes a mediator between the visible and the invisible, between the space of the sanctuary and the intimate space of prayer.
The light caresses the walls, revealing their roughness, while the fabric of the garment dialogues with the mineral material. Everything is restrained, slow, silent. The photographer places this woman in a continuity of ancient gestures, repeated for generations by the pilgrims who came to pray at the Sheikh Hussein Shrine.
Through this image, Ferranti offers a meditation on faith lived in stripping. The pilgrim is not a subject, but a passage — a human breath in a place charged with memory. More than a portrait, photography becomes a contemplative experience, where we perceive the fragile encounter between flesh, stone and spirituality.
Ferrante Ferranti
FRANCE
Born January 13, 1960 in Algeria, of a Sardinian mother and a Sicilian father. He took his first photograph at the age of eighteen, a wave in Belle-Île-en-Mer. Passionate about Fernand Pouillon’s book, Les Pierres Sauvages, he began training as an architect in Toulouse, which he completed at Paris-UP6 in 1985 with a diploma in Theaters and scenography in the Baroque era. Traveling photographer, he has been involved for thirty years with Dominique Fernandez in a joint exploration of the Baroque and the different layers of civilizations, from Syria to Bolivia via Sicily and Saint Petersburg. His photographs dialogue with the texts of the writer, who defines him in the album Itinerrances (Actes Sud, 2013) as “the inventor of a language which links the sun to the ruins, in search of the meaning hidden in the forms” .
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