In 2014-2015, I spent a year in Cartagena as the recipient of a Fulbright Artist Fellowship. This long residency enabled me to form a deeper, more nuanced and realistic perspective on the country that would not have been possible with a helicopter journalism approach. My work splintered off into three projects, one of which was a finalist in the 2016 Duke Center for Documentary Studies Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize.
The thrust centered around the work of rural and urban youth peacemakers and peacekeepers (fighting for change), the work of civil organizations in Cartagena, single mothers and heads of house who were struggling to regain footing after multiple episodes of internal displacement, and the effects of civil war on a town south of Cartagena. The following is some of the work that resulted.
View "More than 36 Hours in Cartagena" →
View "Si Dios Quiere" →
View "La Oficina" →
More than 36 Hours in Cartagena | Personal
When the NYTimes published its “36 Hours In...” piece on Cartagena in September of 2014, I noticed that all of the photographs and video were taken within the walled portion of El Centro and just across the street from the Clock Tower in Getsemaní on Calle Media Luna. I found it deplorable and embarrassing that their time was dedicated to shooting and editing talk of “linen clothes,” ice cream, and gelato spots (“to-beat-the-heat”) when the pressing issues of the city (and country) are so very clear. You want to talk about linen?!?!
Most of the women I worked with arrived in Cartagena between the late 90s and early 2000s, forcibly driven out by their respective pueblos around Colombia (from Chocó to Antioquia to the mountain range behind Santa Marta). Many of them are also survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, the death/s of loved ones/partners/family members. All of these women live day-to-day, none are ‘salaried’ or have a solid job. Some rely on partners or family members, some sell perfume, iron or wash clothes.
Many of these leaders (like Yuris and Maria) could not do the organizing work they do and also keep a ‘steady’ job. None plan on returning to where they are from, even though they have also been targeted (as they reported to government entities in Cartagena) by other armed groups who seek dominance of urban areas like Cartagena. Yuris, Maria, and Gavelys have all been sent personal text messages by members of ERPAC (Ejercito Revolucionario Popular Anticommunista/Antisubversivo de Colombia - paramilitary descendants) as far back as 2011 and as recently as 2015. The response time from the Office of Victims was four years; decidedly too slow.
I spent almost a year in various neighborhoods far outside of Cartagena’s historical district. The money being spent on hotels and the tourism industry is outgrowing the need for tour guides, places to stay, or food, while the needs of Cartageneros/as continues to grow every day.
Those on the fringes of Cartagena - most noticeably the struggling working class, Afro-descendants, indigenous, displaced, or women - are constantly swimming upstream without much infrastructure or help from government agencies/offices. If all of these things - Afro-descendant, indigenous or ‘mixed’ race, displaced, and a woman - finding solutions to the very basic needs of daily life can be overwhelming and oftentimes impossible. To paraphrase James Baldwin, it becomes very expensive to be poor.
Of the many things I learned from Gavelys this past year, one of her adages was: "Ni pa' tras pa' recoger dinero," a motto that roughly means "Always keep moving forward - never look back, not even to pick up a penny on the pavement."
“Si Dios Quiere” | Personal
I arrived in El Carmen de Bolívar, two hours south of Cartagena, Colombia, in late 2014 on a Fulbright Research Grant to conduct interviews and take portraits of people who had been forcibly displaced from other regions of Colombia because of the ongoing armed conflict. I worked in the region for six months, seeking to find collaborative ways of imparting what displacement really means (looks, feels, and sounds like...) in a way that countered western media’s tendency to rely on captions to encapsulate Colombian men and women, children or soldiers. The way we see a person determines the way we photograph them. The way ‘we’ see Colombia does not extend beyond Pablo Escobar, Shakira, café and cacao, but it has to begin now if not yesterday, for there are as many realities as there are displacement numbers and war figures, as many different stories and experiences as there are billions of dollars delivered in failed US-backed aid packages. The fundamental question now is: what does a commitment to building peace look like after so many generations who only know conflict?As with almost any question posed in El Carmen de Bolívar, the answer from the streets will always be: “Si Dios quiere” (‘If it’s God’s will…’). More than fifty years into the conflict, after countless detours and decades of failed government promises, the people no longer seem to believe that it matters what they want; they defer to God before government. And yet, a new way of thinking is emerging from workshops and classrooms, strikes and marches, organized by the people of the region who want to reclaim a basic dignity and quality of life that many knew before displacement. Slowly, organizational efforts of campesinos and youth are producing a new sense of the possibility of self-determination.
“La Oficina” | Personal
The following are portraits of some of the people I met at the Oficina de Víctimas in El Carmen de Bolívar, south of Cartagena, during my Fulbright year. Montes de Maria, located in the center of the department of Bolívar and Sucre, is home to an agrarian population that suffered gravely at the hands of three main armed groups active in the armed conflict: the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerilla faction), paramilitary groups (right-wing auto-defenses set in place partially to ‘combat’ the FARC, such as the AUC), and the uniformed state and government army (El Ejército). In recent years, demobilized paramilitary groups have regenerated into differently named but similarly ‘themed’ groups called Los Bacrim (short for Bandas Criminales), who exercise a familiar power over weaponless civilians.
I set up shop in the back patio of the office during weekday mornings and would head out to the waiting room and engage in conversation with people who would allow me an introduction. On Monday mornings an average of 300 people show up at the office; the line is out the door. There is no air-conditioning and a staff of 3-4 on any given day. Often, the system gets jammed or the computers freeze and those waiting are told to come back tomorrow, which seems easy enough but is not for many of these people for whom traveling to and from a distant pueblo one hour by moto-taxi is expensive.
In the office, there is the sense that the government is overwhelmed, as if it wasn’t expecting the 4+ million internally displaced to answer its calls for reparations. The task at hand is overwhelming indeed, and the armed conflict is still ongoing.
