Sangre
Diego Levy
Violence flares in the streets of Latin America; it is part of its landscape and constitutes its identity. My point here is not to allude to the causes of violence – poverty, inequality and injustice – but to show, through compelling images, how blood has become a common sight in all the streets and neighborhoods, around every corner. There is the distance and also the closeness posed by a picture, the possibility of seeing without being seen, of witnessing without being at risk, and all this modifies the relationship to violence, making it impossible not to think about it.
Preview
The work I am presenting is a journey through the most violent streets on the continent: Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Medellín and Mexico City, cities in a constant, seemingly eternal state of warfare where life seems to have no value. Situations such as the ones I have portrayed are quite common in the fringe districts of these cities where children, often holding their mother’s hand, get involved, as if playing in crime scenes, looking at dead bodies as if they were watching the Powerpuff Girls on television. No doubt unconsciously, they are filling their minds with images of blood and death, as if it were a natural and dangerously normal scenario. This work is not meant to produce results, but to probe thoroughly into an issue that is dramatically prevalent in all the major cities on the continent. It aims at nakedly showing the consequences of the vast inequality and misery experienced in Latin America. The images of death, blood and pain I have collected are part of the terrifying everyday reality which many scholars now regard as the most destructive germ infecting young Latin American democracies.
