Inshallah is an Arabic word that means “if God wills it”. It expresses a believer’s faith in relation to an event that may occur in the future. The photographic project tells of the expectations, desires, and dreams of some young residents of the Principe Alfonso neighbourhood in Ceuta (Spain), a border city with the highest unemployment rate in Europe, approximately 30%. Youth crime in the neighbourhood represents a deep wound, determined by different factors such as social exclusion, unemployment, school dropout rates, and lack of institutions.
The project’s aim is to reveal the state of uncertainty and precariousness in which the young people of the barrio find themselves, from a perspective in which they are protagonists, aware of their condition and able to interpret their destinies, creating margins of freedom of thought and action. These are intimate and personal stories that manifest the point of view of a community: Moroccan youths with Spanish passports, European citizens on the African continent, Muslims confronted with other cultures and religions. The images depict the degree of suspension in their lives, stretched between the internal scenario of the neighbourhood and the external one, between the tendency towards crime and the need for redemption, the social decay and the desire to continue studying to improve their surroundings. Some shots represent landmarks of the landscape: the natural ones, like the mountain group of the “Mujer Muerta”, or artificial ones, like the “Valla”, fence that separates Spain from Morocco and hinders the illegal transit of migrants.
Inshallah is above all a message of hope that remains in suspension, but it’s repeated with strength by each of the young people portrayed.
Nicolas Brunetti (Italy, 1990). He is an Italian freelance documentary photographer living and working in Cesena (Italy). He produces long-term photographic projects that deal with issues of social and environmental relevance. Through his work, he aims to tell the stories of limited communities living in conditions of precariousness, social exclusion and marginalisation. Her works offer an intimate and personal glimpse into the lives of local inhabitants, while conveying a sense of urgency and collective needs. Since 2019, he has attended several masterclasses and photojournalism workshops with internationally renowned photographers, including Fulvio Bugani and Federico Borella. In 2023, he took part in the masterclass in photojournalism at the InsideOver editorial office in Milan, with teacher Antonio Faccilongo, winner of the World Press Photo (2021). During the course, he created the photographic project Inshallah, thanks to which he won the masterclass, an award that will lead him to assist photographer Antonio Faccilongo in the realisation of his next photojournalism project for InsideOver. Brunetti was a finalist in National Geographic Italy's photography competition in 2018; a finalist in Portugal's Encontros da Imagem 'Emergentes' international photography competition in 2024; received an honourable mention at Trieste Photo Days 2024; won Life Framer's 'Youth' photography competition in 2024; and was selected by the Imago Mundi Foundation as one of five artists for the Open Call 'Present Is The New Future'. His work has been published in InsideOver and Perimetro. His first solo photo exhibition at the Galleria Pescheria in Cesena is planned for 2025.