Viviana Peretti | Salaam Harlem

Photo © Viviana Peretti - All Rights Reserved

Eid al-Fitr or the Islamic festival of breaking of the fast is imminent, and millions of Muslims around the world are eager for it as it marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. The religious Eid is a single day during which Muslims are not permitted to fast, and it celebrates the conclusion of the 29 or 30 days of dawn-to-sunset fasting during the entire month of Ramadan.

Viviana Peretti, with her Salaam Harlem photo essay, documented the Murid Islamic Community of America in Harlem, New York City, as part of her larger NEW YORK PRAYS photographic work.

A Murid (or Mouride) is generally defined as an initiate into the mystic philosophy of Sufism originating in Senegal and the Gambia. A high proportion of the Senegalese in New York City are “Murids, and they practice a Muslim work ethic that provides money to create mosques and sustain their operations. The ethic is based on the Quranic injunction that Muslims must do ‘amal saalih, or wholesome work, that is acceptable to Allah and will be rewarded. Many of these Murids work as street vendors.

I featured Viviana Peretti's work on many occasions on this blog. s an Italian freelance photographer based in New York where in 2010 she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP).

In 2000, after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in photojournalism and spent nine years working as a freelance photographer.

Viviana has received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, CNN, the Fondation Bruni-Sarkozy in France, FotoVisura, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogota, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. In 2010 she has been selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XXIII. In 2013-2014 Viviana has been an Artist-in-Residence at L’École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, France.

Her work has been published in a number of international media outlets including The New York Times, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, L'Oeil de la Photographie, New York Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, and L'Espresso.