INTERVIEW EXCERPTS
" I photograph as well that uses so much metaphors and so many subtleties in the images. I think it photography to me, it can do what poetry does, in the sense that it's not so definite." — Fabiola Ferrero
"I love collaborating with the women. Every encounter it is an adventure and for me it's… it is so important…And… and it is allowing me to express myself in a certain way. I think having a foot in each country it has been a gift for me… and I guess for my photography [...]" — Rania Matar
Personal Connection with Photography
" But photography above speech and writing is my primary language. [...] I feel that this is my primary language and allows me to see things about myself that no other way of expressing such as writing, allows me to do. [...] So I believe that migration helped me, it helped me a lot to live the photograph without making a life from it." — Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"I feel that there is a possibility to get to know the world, to also get to know my country and that of course that also serves to get to know myself. I feel that there is a lot through what I have done, photographically speaking, that has also made me know myself, to also be able to strengthen my own identity, that I feel that this is also something very intimate" — Freisy González Portales
Migration Stories
" I felt really crossed by my family's migration, because of course I felt, I felt crossed by my migration because I lived and incarnated it every day. But how to understand that migrant story is not just mine, that is, because it aslo belongs to my ancestors. So, I fall into this, my body, my mind, my psyche fell into this last year, no? So, while I was confronting myself with this and with the idea of doing a project and no matter what, I told myself that I couldn't talk about being Caribbean, black, migrant in Chile if I didn't talk about myself, because I am all these things. I felt really crossed by my family's migration, because of course I felt, I felt crossed by my migration because I lived and incarnated it every day. But how to understand that migrant story is not just mine, that is, because it aslo belongs to my ancestors. So, I fall into this, my body, my mind, my psyche fell into this last year, no? So, while I was confronting myself with this and with the idea of doing a project and no matter what, I told myself that I couldn't talk about being Caribbean, black, migrant in Chile if I didn't talk about myself, because I am all these things" — Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"I went back, it was just a lot of, you know, difficult emotions and going like, do I belong here? Do I not belong here? Is this my country? Yes. But I don't relate to this. I don't relate to that. You know, what about my opportunities, we'll all have these fears that were from the past [...] You know, for everyone, it means that we will go through discomfort, and how can we experience discomfort and a lot of heartbreak because having things that you see everyday, and suddenly they change, without you wanting them to change. It's heartbreaking, it can be really traumatic, like, how do we experience that as individuals and as groups of people without knowing that everyone else is also experiencing the same thing [...] [Migration] it's such a universal theme that it's very easy to forget, that is universal." — Daniela Rivera Antara
" I do not usually identify with these differences as a subject-object, but I always try to weave bridges to also be a little closer and not position myself as that distant subject who is, as it were, from a supremacy, studying or approaching other human groups [...]
I don't think I'm very attached to a single way of doing things, nor do I think I can necessarily belong to a specific genre of photography" — Freisy González Portales
"I am photographing a community or an individual I always take the time to speak to them and get to know them so I can make them comfortable and show a glimpse of their personality in their photograph" — Maryam Wahid
"So, you know, I do not like to label my work one way or another. I see my work as personal, and maybe somewhat autobiograhical. It is a combination or portraiture, documentary and fine arts. Maybe all of the above… I guess my work changed a little bit since I started with my black-and-white work in the refugee camp that might be seen as more of a documentary, and now my pictures are more collaborative and I hope, metaphorical" — Rania Matar
Photographic Practices
"I'm an authorial documentary photographer, because I don't necessarily follow the strict rules that apply to documentary photography. Because, for example, I like using archives, I like using videos, audios, like experimenting with how to put them on stage. So, of course, obviously this doesn't necessarily come into this as a very closed and schematic concept of documentary photography and that's why I use the authorial surname"— Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"I don't really place my work as documentary work. And I know that it looks like it. But I don't see it like that. Because I do see it as conceptual… artworks that just take the form that they take based on what it is that needs to be communicated" — Daniela Rivera Antara
"So let's say just photographer, but mostly in the documentary field [...]
But today, I think that's also more flexible. I think. Some people call it like authorship, or some people call like the expanded documentary, or, you know, something that is, doesn't really pretend to be objective thing that recognizes that there is a subjective point of view to every work. And then there's also, you know, in… in the practices themselves, more room for intervention, more room for using archives, more room for other ways to photograph. They're still considered within the on the documentary practice [...]" — Fabiola Ferrero
Self-Representation
"Then I also understood that in order for me to be able to put myself in this place of vulnerability, because if I am a self-portraitist, I would never have to put myself in front of the camera for a personal project where I would have other stories to be, my very private story, as if I felt that I had to look for other very private stories too. I have to start taking pictures of myself because that is also me"— Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"And the fact that a lot of local communities and a lot of local photographers are also talking about their own experience, is a way of saying, you know, we've, I've seen myself or by myself, I don't mean necessarily the person, but like, I've seen my country, I've seen my community, I've seen what you're supposed to be like, from so many eyes, I also want to show how I see myself. So that's a reclaim, as a way to reclaim your narrative of yourself"— Fabiola Ferrero
"Self- representation to me is a very powerful way of connecting with people. When you open your world and show your vulnerability, talk about your values and what you are passionate about it can really engage and inspire people [...]Through the art of self-representation one can really unravel complex matters which affect people today and give them hope" — Maryam Wahid
04
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"I feel that there is a way I could perhaps reach a greater depth of what that sensation really is like without someone being able to caricature that burden or that experience, or that it would not also be seen as close to porn-misery, or that I would not also be seen as an impoverished Latin American. I don't know, I think there are also many biases in the visualities of migrations, especially when talking about migration in this case. [...]
But I do feel that there is a constant and even though we have been migrating for so many years and also not just Venezuela, of course, there are a lot of photographs of people walking, right? Between the borders and with the bags, right? And now that we have this whole story of the Darién and the Darién Pass, like those images as always and also like if we never arrive at a place, we are always in transit or like we could never achieve good things or get a job or be happy [...]. And I know that there are stereotypes, I mean, there are some stereotypical ideas about those things, but obviously that's not the case. But I do feel that there is a tendency to talk about migration as if it were only one way. And I feel that everyone has different migration stories and that migration stories are not static" — Freisy González Portales
"I grew up visiting museums galleries and often found photographs of people that did not look like me. This was what inspired me to start researching and exploring the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. [...] Their stories should be centred around the hopes and dreams they have but rather the focus is on their life and their current state which I think is problematic. One should not be in a position to talk to the world about their personal experiences if they don’t want to. One should not be forced to expose their trauma to the world which I think mainstream media does. The focus on these communities is often bias and repetitive" — Maryam Wahid
"I mean… the news in the West always portrays women as … they are fixated on the veil… oh my god, she is wearing the hijab, she is wearing the veil and that… and they just… there is so much like… I don't know…there is so much… they want to see people… almost see women in a one-dimensional way, and for me, I am hoping in my work that I am showing those women to be becoming in all shapes and sizes and different religions. You know… I am a Christian Palestinian Lebanese people… I am not religious but I am Christian. People don't even know we exist. [...] Yeah… so for me is also important to shatter those stereotypes" — Rania Matar
Mainstream Media Critiques
" [...] here there is one, one... a media discourse, which I don't want to say journalistic because it is very far from journalism, but there is a very harsh media discourse, very unfair and very far from reality about migration. So they talk about illegal people, about the migratory crisis and all these things that we know about migration, we know that we don't have to talk about [...] we migrants are to blame for all the ills of this country, but no one is talking? on side B, that is, or on side x, y and z, because there are many sides, right? How are they going to put us all in the same bag? [...] So, of course, I felt that if I kept feeding myself this absolutely dehumanizing narrative of the migrant, I was forced to dehumanize and I didn't want to allow it. Then I felt that the only thing I could do was take photos and agree with this, because I couldn't be the only Caribbean person who felt that it was wrong that they wanted to call us Caribbean people for insulting us" — Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"I did hate the way that things were being reported on, I hated the images that were coming out, and I hated that everyone was only talking about the image of the little dead Syrian boy, which is a horrendous image. But no one was talking about it, no one was referring to Latin Americans the same way that they were referring to about this boy. Which, I mean, you know, there… Unfortunately, that is also a reflection of the political landscape. But yeah, I didn't like the images that came out there were these horrible photos of people walking there in, you know, very undignified photos of people without shoes, people suffering and pain… dead people… like when have you seen the photo and explicit photo of a dead white person? Or, you know, like a dead English man? In, you know, a tragic accident? Never. Like, that doesn't exist. So, yes, it actually bothered me a lot. And it still bothers me" — Daniela Rivera Anatara
"I wouldn't necessarily point out somebody's work and say, 'Your work is problematic.' It's also very easy to say. I mean, obviously, there is work out there that is problematic, I think mostly comes from a lack of sensitivity from the photographers themselves, who sometimes do it to extract something for their own good…you know… but when I really think about the colleagues that I admired, I wouldn't necessarily say that the work is problematic by itself, I would say, would be problematic if it was the only work out there that exists" — Fabiola Ferrero
Counternarratives
"I embrace my femininity as a photographer, not as a person, but my sensitivity as a woman. And doing this and recognizing myself in this place has allowed me to confront photography in a very different way and do documentary photography with an ethical value that goes above me" — Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"And obviously I believe that when you recognize yourself there and when you realize this reality you embody it and live it and understand it and see it in your everyday life, you empathize with having a much more political vision, I have to see it from a political point of view because it is political. That was a political statement because I, well, because we are all of us who come out as Caribbean, not me who does it, but those of us who come out there, we are the face of the Caribbean, we are not a number, we are not a statistic, we are not an adjective, we are a face. It's a story and that's political, isn't it? That is, how can we stop dehumanizing our lives to justify xenophobic speeches, racist speeches, that is and that is political" — Dagne Cobo Buschbeck
"Ah, um, I, I know, my work is political because the intent is political. But the intent is not to resist. It's not about resistance, it's about going" — Daniela Rivera Antara
"I'm trying to find words, just to consciousness to make the view of the country more complex. And that's something to do with going beyond the roles or stereotypes that we usually see for women and for men, like where it's so become making that view a bit more complex". — Fabiola Ferrero
"[...] I feel that also, I don't know, talking about culture and identity could be an expression of politics, but also talking about women or migrant women, or speak from myself as a Venezuelan, Latina migrant woman, who has suffered xenophobia and who also wants to make known what is behind or internally, let's put it that way, of the migratory processes and the return processes, I feel that I also… There is a political charge there. Yes, politics is always there, especially from gender, from identity and culture and from self-representation, which could also be said to be a political fact." — Freisy González Portales