Lenses of the jungle

Lenses of the jungle

Consulate General of Mexico – June 7 to September 17, 2024

The exhibition includes 70 photographs by 8 female photographers and 8 male photographers who worked at different times in Chiapas. About 40 photographs are gelatin silver prints, one is a platinum-palladium print, and 27 are pigment prints. All photographs are mounted for the exhibition.

Video material on topics related to the exhibition is also included. The exhibition will be accompanied by additional resources via a microsite as part of the www.batsilab.org website.

CONTENTS

1. First Section: Begins with the introduction of the indigenista policies of Lázaro Cárdenas’s government in the 1940s and explores the conditions in the region. Two photographs by the great Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, taken during the 1949 expedition to Bonampak organized by the newly established National Institute of Fine Arts, are included. The photographs of Gertrudis Duby Blom and Marcey Jacobson, pioneers of socio-documentary photography in Chiapas, are also featured. This section also includes the work of Ernesto Vásquez, a photographer documenting the struggle for land recovery in his community. This process is followed by the beginnings of autonomous community organization leading to the First Indigenous Congress in 1974 and continuing until the celebration of 500 Years of Resistance on October 12, 1992. This section includes the work of photographers representative of the new Mexican photojournalism, including Martha Zarak, José Angel Rodríguez, and Antonio Turok – 27 photographs.
2. Second Section: Focuses on the events of January 1, 1994, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) burst onto the national scene, demanding recognition of the struggle of indigenous peoples to end their marginalization and social exclusion. This section includes images by three key photographers who captured the media presence of the EZLN struggle: José Angel Rodríguez, Antonio Turok, and Marco Antonio Cruz – 7 photographs.
3. Third Section: Covers the processes of militarization and resistance that followed the Zapatista uprising, the struggle for autonomy, and the laborious process of building peace. This section includes the work of Angeles Torrejón and Fabián Ontiberos – 18 photographs.
4. Fourth Section: Explores new forms of creation and dissemination of photography and focuses on the processes of community organization, autonomous management, and culture of peace that the Zapatista communities have developed since 2000. This section includes the work of a new generation of photographers, including Isaac Guzmán, Daliri Oropeza, Massiel Hernández, and Vanessa García Blanca – 18 photographs.

About Bats’i Lab

It is a volunteer collective that promotes photographic work in southern Mexico, particularly in Chiapas. Its mission is to strengthen the role of photography as a means of individual and collective exploration of the social and cultural context of Mexico, thereby contributing to the development of capacities for generating visual narratives on contemporary themes.

Since 2020, Bats’i Lab has established a Photography Documentation Center, based at the “La Enseñanza” cultural center in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. This Documentation Center integrates a growing reference collection, based on portfolios of major photographic works produced over the last century in Chiapas and southeastern Mexico. Through the development and use of this collection, Bats’i Lab promotes analysis, dissemination, and public dialogue on the role of photography and its contributions.