Compelled by an urgent need to rediscover and preserve my heritage, I went to photograph the people of San Rafael de Mucuchies in the Andean Mountains of Venezuela. I did not know then that my experience there would lead to an extended communion with its inhabitants, and that the people would guide me in a project to inventory and document their lives.
I found in San Rafael de Mucuchies and in San Juan de Las Galdonas (a small village located on the opposite side along the Northeastern Caribbean coast), a vestige of another era. The people are remnants of distant time, whose customs are vanishing with the onset of a voracious modernity. They embody the anthropological, cultural and historical richness and diversity of my country. I have started with Venezuela, but my ambition is to join together the people of the Americas, from Patagonia to Canada, in one portfolio titled The Anonymous Americans. As I realize this project, I have the opportunity to share in the lives of those I photograph, exchanging impressions, and capturing their appearance and essence as they pose for me.
Walking through each town, I get an overview of the people. I then select those who exemplify the spirit of the region, those who carry its imprint and inspire me. When I visit these people and their villages, I feel as though I have taken a step back in time, and I try to portray them as our grandparents may have portrayed them. I am mesmerized by their gestures, their attire, their work, their dignity, their laughter, and their willingness to be taken into account. The wondrous simplicity of their lives astonishes me. I am captivated. I feel that I must faithfully secure their legacy and memory.
I have been working on this project for several years. It has been a journey of self-discovery that has given me focus as a human being, and as a photographer. Through these portraits I seek to reveal their notion of the world surrounding them and how it may differ from ours.
At the heart of this project lies my desire to convey and preserve their supreme value as human beings and to transmit what they have shared with me: Their dignity, their strength, their laughter, their wisdom and their beauty; for these are the basic, the unspoiled, the forgotten, almost invisible heroes living in silence, my Anonymous Americans at La Otra América.
