Wednesday, July 23, 2008

PORTAFOLIO PERUANO

Exhibition
20 pictures 110 x 95 cm.
228 digital images.




A warm morning of January 1992, in a factory of former PESCA PERU company in Chimbote, northern Peru, with the assistance of Francisco "Paco" Gallo, we  began the first "registers" of this PORTFOLIO.
Soon we went along our rute by streets, markets, factories, universities...in Lima, Arequipa, Puno, Cuzco, Trujillo....with the task to meet peruvians "of all the bloods" and of all the trades.
Our general idea seemed simple: "to disappear" as photographer, and to let the portrayed ones "to speak without words" in front of the camera. And later in front of You.

When this project was born?
...maybe already in the boarding school National School Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe (64-68), in Lima, where I shared several years with students coming from "all the corners" of Peru, and I begun to discover the wonderful and astonishing diversity of this country and its people.

Years later, surely, were my readings of Jose Maria Arguedas and his core concerns : the multirracial and pluriethnical nationallity,...the identity......
Our initial pilgrimage was cut short by the rise of the political violence.
Later other projects prevented us to retake the registry of peruvians.

When and how will conclude the project?...perhaps in form of a book -thought we years ago- a portraits album of peruvians of this time of searching for dialog, tolerance and development in democracy.