Mission and focus

The mission and the commitment of Ayzoh! are contained in its name: ayzoh – አይዞህ (m) አይዞሽ (f) – (ayzoh/ayzosh) – is a word from Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, a country to which we are particularly attached and where we have an operational office.

Depending on the situation, it can mean “you’ll see, everything will be fine,” “I hope you’re not hurt,” “don’t worry,” “come on,” “courage,” “I’m with you,” “you’ll make it,” “hang in there.” Ethiopians use it to comfort those who are going through a difficult time or to encourage those who are facing a challenging test.

We stay true to our name: we stand with those facing difficult trials, through photography, design and independent editorial production.

Where we work

Ayzoh! is nomadic by nature and operates in many countries around the world. We work in all areas that affect the life of a community: work, politics, business, human relations, art, music, fashion, architecture, education, spiritual and religious practices.

We explore daily life in urban, rural and marine environments. We document the scientific and technological laboratories where the ideas of the future are born, but we also immerse ourselves in ancient folk traditions, especially those that echo universal values that transcend time and place on our planet.

Our focus

Our work is people-centered, with an emphasis on long-term, in-depth, collaborative projects that commemorate and celebrate the superstars of the everyday: the underserved, the socially ignored, the culturally overlooked, those who – in trying to make the most of their lives and the lives of others – struggle to defend human dignity, the most powerful tool for progress on both an individual and a collective level.

Each Ayzoh! project is therefore also an invitation to consider what can be preserved, improved, abandoned, revised or created from scratch in order to reclaim the concept of being a true community, in the territorial sense, but above all in the human sense.