"Mapas abiertos"

Today we went to La Lonja (one of my favorite buildings in Zaragoza) to see a photography show called Mapas abiertos. Fotografía latinoamericana 1991-2002. The show opened simultaneously in Madrid and Barcelona, and is on tour throughout Latin America over the next few years. The show is magnificent, as is the book that includes much more material than could be displayed. Some work by Marcelo Brodsky, the creator of Buena memoria, is included in the show. Brodsky became a photographer in Barcelona while in exile from Argentina during the military repression. He sought out the classmates in the picture and interviewed them, photographing those who were willing, and documenting their stories as well as the complex relation to memory and commemoration after the end of the dictatorship. When the show was displayed in Buenos Aires, he also photographed the people who came to see the images, often capturing their reflections in the glass covering the image of the class photo.


Interestingly enough, in Zaragoza when a few viewers made complaints about one of the images, the program organizers did a little preemptive censorship to avoid polemic, although the image had been seen in the show in Barcelona, Madrid and San Sebastian.

In 2005, the Foro Latino organized this conference in Mexico City around the theme of the collection, photography in Latin America in the last decade of the millenium. If you go the conference site and click on the names of the panelists, you can read their conference presentations! Very cool.