Glimpses of Indigenous Mexico

Progressive, The, May, 1999 by Catherine Capellaro

Since 1992, the Chiapas Photography Project has offered Mayan people access to cameras and basic photography skills. Now exhibits of these photographs are being shown around the world.

"I have a great interest in taking photos and sharing my photos in exhibitions to continue to rescue and preserve our culture," says Maruch Santiz Gomez. Her work juxtaposes photos of life in her village with common sayings, such as, "If someone dreams they are tilling the soil, it is because someone will die."

Eight men and women from three different Mayan ethnic groups staff the project, which gives cameras and instruction to more than 100 people from Chiapas and the neighboring states of Oaxaca and the Yucatan. The photographers choose their own subjects and themes and write the text and titles that accompany the photos.

Though Chiapas is scarred by poverty, violence, and rapid change, the photos often depict a remarkable peace. "Of the several thousand photos we have, there are fewer than twenty that show anything of the social-political situation," says Carlota Duarte, the U.S.-born photographer who initiated the project. "They take pictures of what is most familiar, pictures of what provides security, predictability, regularity, safety, perhaps.... The photos provide information about clothing, houses, celebrations, tortilla-making."

Duarte now serves as the director of the Chiapas Photography Project and the Indigenous Photography Archive, which are housed at the Center of Higher Studies in Social Anthropology of Southeast Mexico, just outside the town of San Cristobal de las Casas. The archive contains photos from indigenous photographers as well as others by researchers and journalists who spend time in the region.

Refugia Guzman Perez, a project staff member, says photography has given her a new awareness. "Now I am more sensitive to images that surround us that I didn't appreciate before. I did not see the details of our environment, and it was not important to me," she says.

The photos have reached destinations as far away as Johannesburg, South Africa, and Reykjavik, Iceland. Until June 25, an exhibit, "Vision Femenina: Mujeres Mayas de Chiapas (Feminine Vision: Mayan Women of Chiapas), will be displayed at the Carl Gorman Museum at the University of California-Davis. The project has also published several books, including a new collection entitled Camaristas: Mayan Photographers from Chiapas (published by the Center of Higher Studies in Social Anthropology of Southeast Mexico).

For more information on the Chiapas Photography Project, contact Carlota Duarte at 52-968-6528, or email ciesas@sclc.ecosur. mx.