In order to present their authentic voices, I asked the participants to take their own photos of things they considered important to their daily lives and to write their own texts by replying to 3 questions:

What motivated me to come live here?
What is my daily life like?
What challenges have I encountered that are linked to my choice of life?

Through these visual testimonies we discover each person’s universe. Through their texts, we learn about their joys, satisfactions and frustrations, their values and motivations, what they feel and perceive as well as the questions they ask themselves about their life here.

This process allowed each participant to regard his or her life with a certain distance. The camera and ‘the pen’ thus became tools of observation, introspection, reflection and expression.

The points of view presented here of course provide just a glimpse of the diversities and contrasts of ways of living that one can find in the valley.