Soatanana

Mystery unveils right in front of my eyes when I enter the village of Soatanana. A large procession, everyone wearing white and singing religious hymns, moves towards the local church. It feels like I am an unwelcome outsider who will ruin the solemn moment with the sound of a camera shutter. Is it even possible to capture this divine light, this overwhelming feeling of being inside this sacral celebration?

For these people, with or without my camera, I’m just a nomadic wanderer. They humbly do whatever the church teaches them. They invite me to join the worship and share the meal afterward. They are keen to wash my feet just as their holy teacher would do.

And it feels even more marvelous when you realize that this truly biblical story revives here, right in the middle of rural highland Madagascar.

Denys Kutsevalov

Denys Kutsevalov is a Ukrainian photographer, designer, traveler, writer, and co-founder of Nomads, an online photo documentary collective. He has been practicing photography for 12 years with a focus on travel, conservation, nature and wildlife, Indigenous people, and culture. Having visited 40 countries across different continents and exploring and documenting these subjects he now lives and works in Southeast Asia for the past eight years.