 Hello everybody, I'm Nadja Mendez, I'm a graphic design student here at Pratt College and for the next guest in our Phasing Change interview series, we will be having a conversation with Antonio Cosa. He is a photojournalist who's traveled all around the world documenting the reality of some really hard situations. Let's find out more. Hello Mr. Cosa, thank you so much for being with us here today. For the people who might not know you, can you please introduce yourself and tell us what you do? Well, I'm Antonio Cosa, a photojournalist from Mozambique, and I started working as a photographer in Mozambique in 2004. I started working as a professional photographer. And for you, what's your favorite part about your job? Well, my favorite part is when they come back with the material. For example, if I work in a war crisis or a conflict or a refugee camp, especially, is when you're more close to people and you share a lot of things like stories. So the best part of it is when they come back and they can be here sitting with you and tell them stories, share them stories to the public. And also I feel like there's all of these different conflicts going on in the world in different difficult situations. How do you as a journalist choose which stories to focus on? I have to feel, I have to have a big connection of a reason of the people who protest or I have to have a doubt first, like on doubts and this could have to be the first impulse to go to the conflict. And what were some of the hardships that you had to go through and overcome in these Well, it was not really a conflict or a war. It happened just now, like this year. It was a big cycle that hit most of me in my country and it was really bad, very, very bad. And during my 15th of my career, I had been in different wars or camps. But to turn my camera, my camera to my country, this was totally different. It never happened the first time that I had to go home to photograph my people with different eyes, different perspectives and try to hold my, my, myself as a Mozambique in trying to be neutral. And can you tell us more about the Hong Kong conflict and how was your experience of it? Well, it's difficult to talk about Hong Kong because I just came like a few days ago. So I still, my emotions is very, very dangerous to share my opinion when I still have to dissolve them because I went like always like assignments, you go, you have an idea. When you reach there, it's totally different. You know, because like when you start to find out like the media, most of them is just fake because like you go based in what you see in the news. And when you reach there, you won't find it. But like once you're already in the camp or the field, you have to find a way to, to find what's the real story. So I was shocked because I was not prepared to what I saw in Hong Kong. And so like I went to one opinion and I came to a different one. So I know that this conflict has been going on for a long time and that it just recently got even more dangerous. And you, that were in the frontline, what were some of the most dangerous things that you lived through? Well, it was, it was like, for example, like it was many because I was always in the frontline with them. But one that I really like stayed in my mind till now was that it was like a group of the professors. I had an idea what they're going to do, right? Because they had small stones and they was trying like before the police and military people keep coming. And right close to me, one of them opened the backpack and he asked me to hold his backpack and he take like a cocktail bottle, boom, and he chose it straight away to the embassy door. I was there with the camera and he chose, I had his backpack holding and it was like, I don't believe that like I put myself in such a trouble. Because every protest starts, you don't feel it because you have a common people there. But you go deeper, you go deeper, you go deeper, like a few people, like start civilians, let's say. Start to stay behind and you just feel yourself surrounding. Like with, like protesters, frontline soldiers, protesters. Like, black gas masks and everything, like. They're very peaceful, just angry because they have a reason to be angry. They have a reason to be angry. And yeah, just to finalize, I just want to see if you want to share anything with the audience, any part of your experiences that you'd like to share. I don't know. But the only thing I can say is that we have to be like, we people, right? We have to be very like vigilant, like be with the eyes open. Like, be more closer, people to people. We have to be more closer than we used to be before, as we can see like how the world goes. You know, like what you see on the news, it is a lot of fake news, yes, but the image, they're not lying. It's real. And all these things, like it's people that needs our help. And this place, they're not so far, like it looks like on a map. It's around the corner. So if these people can be victims of these conflicts around the corner, you never know that tomorrow can be right here, you know, like where we are right now. Cause like we know the lucky ones, we're not in heaven. We're still right here in the world. So like these things, like we can see, keep moving. So like the only thing is just like support others. So like tomorrow they can be here, like to support us. Yeah, those are all my questions. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your work as well of going to these places and really bringing us back to highlight these difficult situations.