Zapallal & Yunrinaki

Artist: Andres Marroquin Winkelmann

A country with 27,012.900 inhabitants and 39.3% poverty. One third of the population lives in rural areas and 9 millions live in Lima, Peru’s political and economical capital city. Two years ago, 20% of the children didn’t have an opportunity to attend school.

The number of slums surrounding the capital city has grown radically over the last 15 years. Some became neighborhoods and others even districts. Zapallal lies on the peruvian coast, only 40 km out of Lima’s city center. To get to Yurinaki, a small village located in the jungle, you have to get over an elevation of 4755m above sea-level and travel 14 hours using public transport. Peru’s climate diversity, rough geography and economical situation increase cultural differences within the country.

With the help of the communities of Zapallal and Yurinaki, I started a photographic project, that deals with life conditions in these particular surroundings. I wasn’t interested in creating a classic reportage or using a journalistic approach. I wanted the community to participate in the project and involved my subjects in the creative process. They helped me composing the images, selecting and arranging characteristic elements of these surroundings, searching for typical spaces to stage every-day situations in order to deal with social and political issues. Most of the people now living in Zapallal came from the countryside to the outskirts of Lima, hoping to find better work opportunities and establish a solid economical wealth. The high percentage of unemployment and an overpopulated capital city didn’t leave them many chances except starting all over again. Most of the people I photographed in this project experienced this social instability.

Rural areas are almost ignored by the government, they don’t even exist on Peru’s financial map. In places like Yurinaki, this kind of isolation increases the already conservative mentality and later on evolves into distrust. The elder generations doubt and disbelieve in almost everything related to change. Absurd and old fashioned habits still remain active; young men marrying older women, obligating them to work on the fields, or having as many children as possible to increase the number of workers inside the family. In most of the cases families are only learning how to improve and adjust simple ideas about hygiene, social behavior and human rights through younger generations and thanks to educational programs supported by international and private institutions. Most of these children motivate their families to set new values at home, they are often considered being role models or even heads of their families. Thereby they set a new starting point to the development of a social behavior.

I organized a 5 day photography workshop for kids between 8 and 14 years. During this week, using Point&Shoot cameras, the participants had to photograph the following tasks: Bedroom, family, food, their home and their street. They had to shoot one task everyday, having five pictures for each of the tasks. With the help of their parents they took notes and described the motives they shot, having an opportunity to follow and perceive the reality of their own work. During the workshop I visited each of the families, spending some time with them. Using the same cameras as the kids, I also photographed the predefined tasks, simulating a child’s view by shooting from a low perspective. After one week of editing, I organized a little exhibition for the people involved in the project and the community, a show where the primary stage in the development of a visual world was displayed. The pictures the children made and the ones I took were mixed together on one wall, a presentation where the viewer couldn’t differentiate the pictures I made from the ones of the children. Presenting both photographic results at a same level, promoted the recognition of the children’s potential and achievements by the community.

This project depicts a photographic assembly of the ongoing process in this particular social development. The staged images were the result of an interaction with the community and after they’ve been introduced to a new way to do so, it’s again the children, who create a “picture” of their surroundings, which they show to the community in form of an exhibition, offering another possibility to communicate and sharing their perspectives. Through the children of Zapallal and Yurinaki, the families now have an opportunity to shape their old fashioned habits into new solid values. With this project I wanted to encourage interactions within the families and to help increase the personal and social development of these children.