The Dollos of Dini
“If your name is Dollo, you can only be originally from here, from Dini in the Dogon country. If you are Dollo, we are family.”
We are in the heart of Mali, on top of the Biandagara cliffs. The man who states these words is an elderly gentleman; a tribal elder amongst the elders who come together each evening after the heat of the day, to chat beneath the baobab tree in the centre of the village.
I show them the colour of my skin. They shrug their shoulders. “All of this has no importance.”
A major project is born for me, the French Caucasian from Brooklyn - to photograph my Dogon family and simply transmit the message: skin colour has no importance, mon Frère.
Philippe Dollo
April 2007
