MILAN.- Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia inaugurated the exhibition Your wounds will be named silence, photographs by Robin Hammond.

“Their suffering, in generations to come, their collective wounds, will be named silence.” --From “A poem for Zimbabwe” by Chenjerai Hove.

In a powerful piece of photojournalism, Robin Hammond narrates the present situation in Zimbabwe.

A former British colony, Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980. Rather than years of freedom though, the local population has endured 33 years of dictatorship and witnessed the deterioration of their country under Robert Mugabe’s violent regime.

Robin Hammond visited Zimbabwe as a journalist for the first time in 2007, returning often over the next five years. Each time he left torn by conflicting emotions: dismay and revulsion, but equally strong, profound attachment to a nation hanging in the balance.

His powerful photographs depict a country dotted with skeletons, those of once productive factories and farms, of abandoned or destroyed houses and, more chilling still, those of the bodies of its inhabitants bent by sickness and deprivation. Through his images we meet communities composed of children or the elderly, in which the young men and women have died or fled abroad. Through his eyes we behold a nations fear and pain, and the loss of what should have been a great African nation.

“Zimbabwe has become a forgotten land. Today, with no light cast on the dark shadows of Robert Mugabe's relentless tyranny, the downtrodden people of one of Africa's most hauntingly beautiful nations feel rightfully abandoned by the world. Their modest hope devoured by the malice and greed of politicians, Zimbabwe's people have nowhere to turn and, against the brutality of the police and military, no strength to cry out in the dark. In Your Wounds Will Be Named Silence the Award-Winning photojournalist, Robin Hammond, provides a critical voice to this lost generation of African's dying of disease, poverty and neglect. By baring witness to a nations great despair, at personal risk to himself and those brave enough to help him, he brings one of Africa's most enduring and important crisis back into the spotlight - into an unhindered space of free expression and protest where the voices of Zimbabwe's dispossessed can once again be heard.” --Dan McDougall. Award-Winning Africa Correspondent. The Sunday Times of London

The photographs on display at Forma represent some of the most significant shots from this project which won the 2011 Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award.

The exhibition is curated by Alessandra Mauro and Robin Hammond.

Robin Hammond is a 37-year-old freelance photojournalist born in New Zealand. He has been part of the photo agency Panos Pictures since 2007.

The winner of four Amnesty International awards for Human Rights journalism, Robin has dedicated his career to documenting human rights and development issues around the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

After spending time in Japan, the United Kingdom and South Africa, Robin Hammond currently lives in Paris.