Bajo las Nubes (UndertheClouds)
The Quechua people of the Peruvian Andes have always maintained a deep connection with their land, a balance rooted in the worship of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth. However, this ancient bond is now under serious threat. In recent decades, Peru has allowed mining companies to exploit numerous indigenous territories, leading to devastating environmental and health impacts. The contamination of water resources and the loss of biodiversity—exacerbated by increasingly frequent extreme weather events—are jeopardizing natural ecosystems and, with them, the livelihood of the Quechua people. Today, more than ever, the growing scarcity of arable land and the lack of access to clean water are forcing more and more communities to migrate to cities, where they face new forms of marginalization.
To explore this condition, I sought to combine two different approaches within a single expressive register: a personal one, tied to my direct connection with this ancient culture, and a more documentary one, focused on the visual analysis of a reality that the contemporary development model is slowly eroding. Through this register, developed by blending landscapes and black-and-white portraits, my aim was to translate into images the power of the animistic bond between the Quechua people and their land, so that it might become a symbol of both spiritual and material resilience. My hope is that their voices— “under the clouds” and through these photographs—will resonate as a call to rediscover and preserve balance.
*Website under construction
*Instagram Photographic Account: giordano_simoncini
