From the Andes to Africa…
If you’re in the Bristol area over the next few days, please check out the Stokes Croft Arts House, where this photo, along with work by other photographers and artists, is on display and will be auctioned on 2nd July to raise money for the Malawi Education Project.
I took the picture in the village of Cuatro Esquinas, Peru, while I was working on a documentary project with Ayuda en Acción in 2004. Cuatro Esquinas is an isolated mountain community in the arid south of the department of Cusco. Two days on horseback from the nearest road, the village is extremely isolated, and at over 4000m in altitude it is at about the limit at which people can scratch a living from the soil.
The boy in the picture is throwing the ball to me, inviting me to join him in a game of football. With the altitude, I barely had enough energy to take photographs, let alone kick a ball. I was eventually roped into a game, but after 10 minutes or so I made my excuses, between gasps, and retired, unable to keep up with a bunch of 10-year olds.
From Madrid to the Sahel
Last week Mely and I went to see Marina Urbina Yeregui’s exhibition on paintings of the Sahel, on at the Centro Vasco Euskal Etxea (Madrid) until 30th May. Marina’s paintings are the fruit of a month-long journey through Niger and Burkina Faso, and the images form an evocative impression of daily life in the midst of the vast, heat-blasted landscapes of the Sahel. Well worth a visit if you’re in Madrid this week.
La semana pasada, Mely y yo fuimos a ver la exposición de Marina Urbina Yeregui que se expone en el Centro Vasco Euskal Etxea (Madrid) hasta el 30 de mayo. Las obras de Marina son el fruto de un mes de viaje en Níger y Burkina Faso, y las imágenes forman una impresión que evoca la vida cotidiana bajo el sol abrasador y los inmensos paisajes del Sahel. Vale la pena visitarla si estás en Madrid esta semana.
Woman on the Metro. In a Suitcase.
Our latest assignment is the theme ‘surreal’. Another tough one, but Madrid has plenty of corners where the weird and wonderful seem to be everyday occurrences. I wouldn’t say the metro was one of them though… like most of the other 2 million or so who use the metro for their daily commute, I tend to switch into autopilot as soon as I get onto the train, slipping into a sort of temporary mental stasis until I emerge at my destination.
During rush hour one evening last December, Passengers who happened to glance up from their newspapers and books might well have taken a second look at this fellow and his unusual cargo. The woman in the suitcase isn’t trying to sneak a free trip, however. The label on the case reads ‘BOUGHT’: the picture was taken on December 2, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, and she’s an activist from Amnistía Internacional Madrid who is travelling across the city in a suitcase to raise awareness of human trafficking and forced prostitution.
The act raised plenty of eyebrows and livened up many a journey home from work, and the story made the front page of the Madrid section of El Mundo newspaper.
