EVERYDAY IS NIGHT | JEAN-CLAUDE WICKY

Durante años, el fotógrafo suizo Jean-Claude Wicky penetró en las profundidades de las minas de Bolivia, enterrándose con los trabajadores en los laberintos de Colquiri, Viloco, Huanuni y Potosí, "donde los hombres se enfrentan con la roca y dialogan con el diablo".

"En las profundidades de las montañas bolivianas descubrí, fascinado, un diablo de arcilla llamado Tío. Es el dueño del mineral y de las vetas, que puede esconder o revelar. Este príncipe de las tinieblas tiene el poder de decidir el destino de los que invaden su territorio para apropiarse de sus riquezas. Cuando se ofende, el Tío es capaz de aplicar los castigos más terribles. Por ello, los mineros lo honran con ceremonias semanales llamadas ch'alla. Le solicitan su protección y ayuda a cambio de hojas de coca, alcohol y cigarrillos"

Between 1984 and 2001, Jean-Claude Wicky, a Swiss documentary photographer, took more than 80 photos at 30 mining centres in Bolivia. 

His pitch-black pits, faces contorted by rubble, figures teetering over perilous cliff-tops and views down shudderingly steep shafts have toured to 12 Latin American countries and 36 cities, seen by more than half a million people.

Arriving at Geevor, the tin mine which spent most of the 20th century shifting thousands of tons of black tin, they serve as a rare atmospheric parallel between Cornwall and South America.

"The similarities between the miners of Bolivia today and those of Cornwall generations ago is remarkable," says Bill Lakin, the Chair of Trustees at the mine.

"I was astonished by Jean Claude's haunting photography. No-one can fail to be moved by this stunning exhibition."

For his part, Wicky underlines the lack of health and safety the miners – ranging from children to pensioners – face in a working environment which is stiflingly hot and full of danger.

"This piece of work is my song of friendship to the people of Bolivia and all those whose daily work consists of seeking their destiny in the depths of the earth," he says.

-----------------------------------------------------

Jean-Claude Wicky is a Swiss documentary photographer. From 1969 to 1975 he travels around the world and makes his debuts in photography in a 22-months stay in Japan.
He lives in Moutier, Switzerland where he has his studio, but photographs mostly in South America and South East Asia.
In the 80's he gets twice the Federal grant, a grant from the State of Berne and the cultural prize of the town of Moutier.
In 1984 he begins a photo project on the Bolivian miners and visits Bolivia on a regular basis for 17 years while exploring some 30 mining centres throughout the country. This photographic work ends with the exhibition «Bolivian miners» and later the book «Bolivianminers». The exhibition was shown in 12 Latin American countries, 36 cities and was visited by over 500.000 people. It is currently in Mexico.
His work has been published in numerous magazine and newspapers including Geo Magazine and Smithsonian Magazine.
He has exhibited photographs in museums and galleries throughout Europe and Latin America. touslesjourslanuit

All images © Jean-Claude Wicky

>>>

“TORO-TORO” | MATTEO BERTOLINO

Bolivia, 2010. “Toro-Toro” is a stunning national park, between 1800 and 3600 metres above sea level, in the norther part of the Potosì Department. Quechua communities live in extreme isolation, carrying on a subsistence life in between difficulties.
“Toro-Toro” is declared national park and protected area in 1989. In the north of the Department of Potosi, Bolivia, an area of around 150 Km squared stretches itself between the rocks and in its drawings, in the caves and waterfalls, in the ancient rocks paintings. An area covered by dinosaurs’ footprints who once populated massively this region, today with an immense geological and anthropological potential, wild and rich in fauna, Mesozoic Jurassic park between 1.800 and 3.800 metres above sea level.
Valleys and mountains here are as magic as, in some ways, hostile towards the Quechua communities (one of the 36 Bolivia’s ethnicities) populating today the region of Toro-Toro; the poor lands’ fertility and the seasons regulate local production, based on potatoes and a few cereals; farming is the economic activity mostly diffused: donkeys, cows, sheep and goats populate valleys, in constant search of water and food. The isolation of many communities is indeed extreme, as many of these can be reached by foot, only after hours walks. The weather can become unforgiving according to altitudes. There is almost no electricity in the region (except for a few solar panels installed by some cooperation project) while water – the blood of the Pachamama according to the Andean Cosmo-vision - is equally scarce, for everyone, humans, plants, animals. Rainfalls are every year delayed and more scarce, and Bolivia is one of the countries most severely affected by climate change.
In a country like Bolivia, undergoing a process of profound political and social change, under the firm guidance of its fist democratically elected indigenous president – Evo Morales – still exist realities which seem frozen in time, partially excluded from the pros and cons of modernity. Descendants of the Inca empire, for whom Spanish is still a mostly unknown language, forced to migrate towards urban settings in search of better opportunities, they leave behind women and children; for these latter groups remain small and poorly equipped communitarian schools. Houses are simple and made of rocks, which are abundant in the landscape; poorest families share a single construction with one room, maybe 4 squared metres, where a standard family unit of 6 people can live (mother, father, 4 children).
The disparities and differences between men and women with regards to daily life are, as often happens, profoundly marked. Men – often heavy drinkers but sure always chewer of coca-leafs (jealously carried in typical plastic bags always accompanying them) – take care of animals and farming fields, as well as of other “heavy” daily works. Women, on the other hand, are devoted to cooking all day long (for the whole family even if they are the last ones to eate), to the care of the always numerous children, to the care of the goats, to recollecting woods around, and to all that is required, with exhaustion permanently tattooed in the eyes. What women and men have in common are coarse hands, faces marked by time and wind, teeth consumed by constant coca-chewing, and the shared hope for a better future for their communities. In a timeless place, from the dinosaurs’ age until the XXI century, the powerful Mother Hearth – albeit tired – remains undisputed queen in Toro-Toro, and the Quechua communities share with her space and time, both in constant search for a delicate equilibrium, both fighting for a more just existence.

All Rights Reserved © Matteo Bertolino 2013

Website

>>>