photo1. View from the PArthenon. Athens. Photo 2. Afghan worker on US base. Afghanistan. Photo 3. Check point during Tripoli battle. Libya. Photo 4. Guantanamo Bay. soldier resting. Photo 5. The Day ben Laden died. Ground Zero view.
This work is an investigation on the role of the documentary image around the concept of Democracy.
Democracy is the rallying cry for political reform; the antidote to tyranny, repression, injustice and suffering that arises from greed and abuse of power. Besides that, who does not support democracy? This word and what it represents has become as a decoy, used to justify the best but also the worst.
I am interested in the struggles around the world for political transformations and beliefs deeply rooted by democratic virtues as well as disappointments and doubts they engender. But it is above what remains of the semantic erosion of the word “democracy†which is the subject of this work. Besides its limited power, the ability of photography to describe an event seems to be lost through the same limited power that democracy has to build an ideal society. That's why I'm keen on watching these events or democratic symbols with distance and interrogation.
Obama did not say that Guantanamo was a shame for democracy? Was Hitler not democratically elected? What thinks an afghan citizen working for the NATO troops, when going back home and hiding his job from his own family? Many pitfalls and obstacles that I try to pass out of the labyrinth that is the democratic reality today. For this I use the nature, as a red line, trees, flowers and animals are all that remain after the passage of our civilization on this planet. As if when democracy fails to be proved the only viable model of society, nature will take over.
Finally, if the role of the documentary image as a document of reality is played by millions of digital photos and videos shared on the web, and its viability to transmit information is challenged, then the best for me, while seeking a representation of reality beyond the media coverage, is to compare the latest resources that can have this infinite field of (illusory?) promises that is democracy.