DIARIES OF DEATH/ DIARIOS DE MUERTE
by Alexandra McNichols
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About the Book
“Diaries of Death”, recollects the voices of those who have been killed or displaced by the Paramilitaries’ Heirs in Colombia. Fragments of the personal diaries of the victims involved in the massacres give meaning to the photographs. Writing and images are combined on individual pages. Every page represents the collective memory of those who have been victimized.The photographs I produced for this book are rooted in the reconstruction of people’s memories and experiences of the war in Colombia. We Colombians have been in a war for over sixty years. I was born in 1969 and the war had already been going on for twenty years. Today, Colombia ranks as number one in the world in human rights violations and second in displaced populations after Sudan.
During the last six years the process of extermination undertaken by 37 armed groups of the paramilitary coalition have targeted trade unionists, human rights defenders, anyone who protests and the poorest settlements in Colombia. The Afro-Colombians, indigenous people and those of American Indian ancestry have been number one priority. These ethnic groups have been oppressed to force them to abandon their territories.
The paramilitaries are considered to be responsible for 70 to 75% of political murders and disappearances in Colombia. They are also associated with several of the major drug lords and monopolies.
Senators, mayors, politicians, companies, ranchers, people from the army and the police have been found guilty of association with the paramilitaries.
More than two thousand massacres have been denounced in the last decade.
In my photographs, the bodies of the assassinated are marked by tags that read, Made in Colombia.This tag symbolizes death as a product consumed by society. Sometimes the tag is blank, difficult to read or is not present in the portrait. Death is a powerful element of cultural imagery and in its final meaning it is a mass product like an object. The people assassinated under the terror of the paramilitary war are numbers that count in the market of death. That is why I intend for my images to educate the audience about Colombia’s history of violence and unjustified death.
Being Colombian I have consumed enough of this product. I want the viewer to experience the same rejection.
My tableaux of deaths signify an ongoing struggle against an illness in Colombian society that has not cure.
During the last six years the process of extermination undertaken by 37 armed groups of the paramilitary coalition have targeted trade unionists, human rights defenders, anyone who protests and the poorest settlements in Colombia. The Afro-Colombians, indigenous people and those of American Indian ancestry have been number one priority. These ethnic groups have been oppressed to force them to abandon their territories.
The paramilitaries are considered to be responsible for 70 to 75% of political murders and disappearances in Colombia. They are also associated with several of the major drug lords and monopolies.
Senators, mayors, politicians, companies, ranchers, people from the army and the police have been found guilty of association with the paramilitaries.
More than two thousand massacres have been denounced in the last decade.
In my photographs, the bodies of the assassinated are marked by tags that read, Made in Colombia.This tag symbolizes death as a product consumed by society. Sometimes the tag is blank, difficult to read or is not present in the portrait. Death is a powerful element of cultural imagery and in its final meaning it is a mass product like an object. The people assassinated under the terror of the paramilitary war are numbers that count in the market of death. That is why I intend for my images to educate the audience about Colombia’s history of violence and unjustified death.
Being Colombian I have consumed enough of this product. I want the viewer to experience the same rejection.
My tableaux of deaths signify an ongoing struggle against an illness in Colombian society that has not cure.
Features & Details
- Primary Category: Fine Art Photography
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Project Option: Large Square, 12×12 in, 30×30 cm
# of Pages: 40 - Publish Date: Oct 28, 2010
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About the Creator
Alexandra McNichols
Terre Haute, In, 47803
Alexandra McNichols is a Colombian-American photographer, who also has worked as a writer, journalist and editor. During the past six years she reconnected with artistic photography, since that time Alexandra has worked steadily, refining her focus as a photographer and exhibiting her artwork in the United States and the Dominican Republic. In this period of time she has focused her interest in deepen her understanding of the traditional processes of photography, and she has produced three body of artwork with contemporary subjects. She published two books: "Dreams and Nightmares" (2008)and "Stone Faces" (2009) compiling her artistic projects.