Jesus Maria Martinez


  • Photographer
    Lothar Troeller
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    07/31/2014
  • Technical Info
    digital file

Jesús Maria Martinez, Sugar Cane Worker. “While I was rebuilding my house I got offered the position of Presidente Empresa Comunitaria El Poblado Vallejuelos to replace the former Presidente who got killed years ago. For a while this community was not operating out of fear of attacks. My job now is to help the farmers to regain trust.”

Story

RETURN FROM HORROR - FACES FROM SAN CARLOS, COLOMBIA
People of San Carlos are traumatized. For decades they have suffered under the violence between guerrilla and paramilitary forces. Everybody can report murdered family members. I photographed their stories.
I was in Medellin in 2010 for the first time. The curator Juan Alberto Gaviria Velez, also director of the Paul Bardwell Contemporary Gallery at the Colombo Americano in Medellin, gave me a show on my street photography in 2011. I went back in 2014 to start a photo project on people in San Carlos, Antioquia, that was most hit by the violence between the guerrillas and the paramilitary forces. At one time over 80% of the population had fled to safer areas like Medellin. Now, the violence calmed down, and more people take the risk to move back to their destroyed homes and rebuild with the help of the government.
It doesn’t help if each side blames the other, especially since the line sometimes divides families. It is also not possible to help with the attitude of a visitor knowing it better how to overcome the hatred. I want to give San Carlos a human and personal face. When I ask the people to look into the camera it’s for them (and the viewer) like looking into a mirror. My hope is to encourage the people to become stronger, so they can help themselves. I started taking portraits and gather stories.

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