From the roads of Ethiopia to the Himalayan Mountain passes, drivers race past men, women and children carrying heavy loads atop their heads, often staring, waving or simply avoiding them. In 2012 Floriane de Lassée decided to stop her car on a roadside in Ethiopia, and speak with the carriers whose lives were spent walking from place to place. How Much Can You Carry? is an ongoing project about the personal and familial burdens we carry on a daily basis. 

​

Working in Rwanda, Nepal, Indonesia, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Japan and other countries, de Lassée asked people to talk about what mattered most to them. And in these remote communities, what mattered most was often objects of necessity or survival: sacks of grains for the farmer, bales of straw to be traded for a cooking pan, or empty bottles to be recycled. 

​

In Aru, Ethiopia, we see a young girl balancing a goat atop a stack of wood. She explains to de Lassée that the goat will soon be bartered for other necessary products, and the wood is used to cook and heat her home; in Bigawa, Nepal, a young man proudly sits with a bunch of hay for his cow, which provides him with milk; Through these images, Floriane de Lassée asks the viewer to contemplate their own reality, and consider what they would carry to symbolize their lives.