African Voodoo: Benin the cradle of voodoo

Voodoo dolls and zombies? In reality, the oldest religion in the world has very little to do with all that.The voodoo cult ́s roots lay in Benin, a small country in Western Africa, from where it spread over the whole world due to slave trade, to Northern and Southern America and the Caribbeans where it has found its own interpretations. In collaboration with the journalist Laura Salm‐Reifferscheidt I tried to portray and understand it’s reality and myth. The cult’s numerous ritualistic acts are still an inherent part of everyday life in Benin, they provide healing and maintain the balance in society. It is a the mystic world of priests, healers and magicians, explaining the cult of ancestors and sacrificial rituals . As modernization is shifting the values of the people in Benin, creating new needs and thurst for personal enrichment, Voodoo and its rituals and ceremonies remain an anchor of hope to a more prosperous and fullfilled life, the people moving between faith and superstition, rituals and witchcraft. A religion and culture which is incorporated and lived naturally and farming part of the daily life. Voodoo remains for those who are not initiated a lasting secret, often described as “that, what we will never understand“.

The Story has been shot with a Mirrorless Camera that cost less than $1.000