For the 5th contribution on BredaPhoto, we would like to present two special projects. The first in the line of classic reportage/documentary photography, the second is a special video production.
Claudia Gordillo El Caribe Nicaragüense – The Nicaraguan Caribbean (1982-1991) (Galerie Ecker)
Claudia Gordillo (1954) (images 1-4) went to study in Italy just as the Sandinista revolutionaries were taking power in her country, Nicaragua. When she arrived in Italy, there was no space for her at the Academy and she was only able to enrol for the photography course, her choice being purely fortuitous.
Back in Nicaragua, she began working for the daily Barricada, the organ of the Sandinista movement. Gordillo soon came into conflict with the authorities, who wanted to impose a political vision through reporting, and who also wanted to impose their own aesthetic. Gordillo managed not only to ignore these obligations, but also to develop her own visual language and narrative. She has always photographed mainly the civilian population and socio-cultural changes.
Then, after 1984, she had the opportunity to work for the bureau responsible for surveying the Atlantic coast. Influenced by the director of this office at the time, she increasingly developed an anthropological approach, describing groups, customs and rituals. The inhabitants of Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Caribbean coasts still aspired to independence, or at least to break away from the central regimes.
Claudia Gordillo’s work in general, and the images about the Nicaraguan Caribbean in particular, are virtually unknown in Europe – hence a special motive to go and see this exhibition.
Galerie Ecker Markendaalseweg 18 Breda
Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 to 17:00 hours
Toilets
Can be visited without a ticket
Location wheelchair accessible
Tina Farifteh, When I Saw the Sun and the Moon at the Same Time (2024) (Backer + Rueb Hall)
Tina Farifteh (1982) (images 5-12) fled Iran at the age of 13. She ended up in the Netherlands, her flight bringing back memories of displacement, uprooting, empathy and xenophobia. She successfully studied business, but eventually turned to the arts, producing one mesmerising, award-winning multimedia presentation after another. A regular guest at BredaPhoto, she was first selected for the ITP (see first entry) in 2018, and again in 2023 and 2024.
The starting point for her latest video production, When I Saw the Sun and the Moon at the Same Time, is simple: at the end of her studies, all her classmates went ‘home’, but SHE didn’t really have one. So she went in search of a new place to call home. She chose Sexbierum, a simple little village in Friesland, and it must have been a shock: Amsterdam has 1 million inhabitants, a population density of 5,000 people per km2 (not to mention the many tourists), Sexbierum has 1,700 inhabitants, 170 people per km2 AND many… sheep.
A love for the place and a home, it wasn’t really like that at first. Tina wondered where she belonged, and to find the answer she launched a new multimedia project called ‘Tina in Sexbierum’, of which the video ‘When I saw the Moon…’ is a first part.
She lives near the ‘Sedyk’ (sea dyke or sea wall) and it is this high dam that she climbs as often as she can to watch the sea. She decided to take a 24-hour trip through Sexbierum, filming it and reducing it to a 24-minute production. It is clear that she is getting attached to the Frisian landscape. She admits it, but points out that at the same time her nostalgia for Iran is growing, for the deserts, the mountains, the sea. And it is precisely these two opposing elements that she brilliantly incorporates into her work.
‘When I Saw the Sun and the Moon…’ is an obsessive production that partly answers the question of whether she considers Sexbierum to be her home. Above all, it’s one of the highlights of BredaPhoto 2024, and one that will linger long in your memory.
Also on show at the same venue is the work of Ioana Cîrlig
Backer + Rueb Hall Speelhuislaan 173, Breda Backer and Rueb parc is located in Breda Belcrum
Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 to 17:00 hours
Information point & ticket office on location.
Other facilities: Pier15 Café nearby at Veilingkade 12, 4815 HC Breda
Location wheelchair accessible
John Devos
[email protected]
