Foto Féminas presents: Isadora Romero
A selection from Latin American and Caribbean online platform Foto Féminas, curated by Verónica Sanchis Bencomo
Isadora is an Ecuadorian photographer and videographer currently based in Quito. She received her bachelor’s degree in photography from the University of Palermo, Buenos Aires (2014); a technician diploma in film and video from the Institute of Visual Arts, Quito (2011); and holds a diploma in contemporary photography from Node Center, Berlin (2011). Today, her work focuses on identity, memory and the role of women in society. She’s also interested in developing her work on the edges of art and documentary photography.
Most recently, Isadora was invited to the 2019 Antarctic Artist in Residence on INAE. She also received an Honorable Mention at the POY Latam 2019 contest for her photobook, Seven point Eight, co-produced in collaboration with Misha Vallejo. She is the co-founder of Ruda Colectiva, a Latin American women photographers collective. Her multimedia works have been projected in different countries in the Americas and Europe. She has worked with various local and international media companies and NGOs around the world such as; Le Monde, Bloomberg, Elle UK, Vice, Habitat and Greenpeace, Girl Gaze, Dove, and Getty Images, among others. She has extensively exhibited in Latin America, USA and Europe.
In addition, she is an active educator and and speaker across Latin America. She is part of the #EverydayProjects and Women Photograph group.
Q: You essentially work in Latin American, especially in your home country Ecuador. Could you talk about how this region inspires you to continue finding stories and why it is important to document them?
I feel that Latin America is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for me; there are so many stories that must be told. I also believe that it is important to think about the point of view from which those stories are told. Our region has been commonly narrated from an external perspective, which is often colonising or ‘folklorising’ its perspective. This is why it is important for me now to tell the stories from an insider perspective. In this sense, I am interested in intimate stories, in the struggles and resistance that are generated in the daily lives of our people and communities. We often consume urgent and sensationalised stories, but I think it is time to understand how we build ourselves as inhabitants in the world from our daily evolution, from our social constructions. I am also interested in the cultural mixtures of Latin America, its syncretism, ancestral cultural inheritance, as well as its deep social, political, economic and environmental contradictions.
Q: Your lens has also focused on women’s stories like, for instance, Amazonia Warmikuna. How did you end up working on this story?
In Latin America, women’s role of struggle, which has been historically ignored, has gained an overwhelming importance in recent years. Much of the social resistance is generated by organisations and groups led by women. This is the case of the indigenous communities of Ecuador, particularly the Kichwas, Huaoranis and Achuaras.
I have been fortunate to know this feminine force at the place where it is brewed. Particularly, for Amazona Warmikuna I went to the community of Sarayaku to do a job with other photographers. For those occasions, like all the women, I had to stay in the community while the men went hunting for 10 days. At that time, without being able to do much of the planned work, I found myself living in a territory where there were temporarily only women. I could listen to them, share and build ties with them. That led me to think of territories dominated by warrior women. Then, the mythical Amazonas did not seem to me as a mere fantasy. For me, they were these real women, of flesh and blood, united and with deep dreams. At that time, I understood that their political fight is being brewed in their daily lives. They told me that because the Earth is a woman, they understand its needs better than anyone else, and therefore, they know how to defend it.
Q: In 2016, Ecuador was hit by an earthquake that ranked 7.8 in the Richter scale. Right afterwards, you went to the the epicentre on the Ecuadorian coast. What was it like producing work during the aftermath of an earthquake?
Fortunately, the stories with which I get involved at work impact me in such a way that they become life lessons. That was the case of Seven point Eight. Our idea, together with photographer Misha Vallejo, was to portray the tragedy of this earthquake from a point of view close to those directly affected. Our first aim was to listen to people, we wanted first-person accounts of what happened. The lessons for us arrived immediately.
At the beginning, we thought that people would reject our Polaroid cameras with strident flashes. On the contrary, the vast majority of people we visited opened their doors on what was left of their houses or shelters, talked with us for hours and shared their feelings on the tragedy. Another great lesson was the resilience of the inhabitants of the Ecuadorian coastal zone. There were many mixed feelings during the project, a process that lasted about three years until the book was published.
Q: Later on, you produced a book, Siete Punto Ocho, together with Misha Vallejo. Why was it important to get this story out in a book?
Since the Polaroids were intervened with texts and drawings by the earthquake’s affected people, this project immediately became a collective memory for Ecuador. The earthquake also uncovered the social inequality in which most residents of the affected areas lived. Poverty and lack of access to quality education are aspects that can be read between the lines in our book and that is essential for us to be registered for posterity. In addition, this was the way in which we could return the images to the people and places we visited. We have donated many books to educational centres and libraries in the coastal area and led a couple of workshops for children about photography in times of a catastrophe.
Ecuador is a somewhat amnesiac country, but we believe it is important to remember and value our history in order to learn from it and make up for our mistakes.
The book is now an excuse to revive this memory, not from a victimising perspective, but rather as a homage to the affected people. Every earthquake anniversary, we conduct talks about the book as an excuse to create awareness. The reaction of the people who attend the talks is to share how they lived through the event, what happened with their friends and family and how they have overcome it. Lastly, we have met some of the affected people whose portraits we took and they have told us that they are proud to be present in the book and to be a part of our country’s memory.
Every earthquake anniversary, we conduct talks about the book as an excuse to create awareness. The reaction of the people who attend the talks is to share how they lived through the event, what happened with their friends and family and how they have overcome it. Lastly, we have met some of the affected people whose portraits we took and they have told us that they are proud to be present in the book and to be a part of our country’s memory.
Q: Most recently, Ecuador has been going through turmoil due to political policies. I know you were out in the streets documenting the events. Can you tell us what you witnessed there?
I feel that the recent protests in Ecuador reveal the inequity of my country and the importance of independent communication media in times of crisis. These protests were covered very little in both local and international media, despite being long-standing social demands. The police repression was also very violent, more than in any other protest I have been in my life.
From the first moment, it was clear to me the role I had in this situation: to communicate the events with sensibility, always from the human side of those who exercised their legitimate right to protest. For me, it was very exciting to see the representatives of the majority of the indigenous nationalities of Ecuador, dressed in their traditional garments, resisting together on the streets. They were immediately discredited by the government and official media, marginalised and discriminated. This demonstrated the deep-rooted racism that is part of the daily life of the dominant and most privileged classes in Ecuador.
To give an example, indigenous women were strongly criticised for bringing their wawas (children) to the capital and carrying them while protesting. This is a symptom of the deep ignorance of ancestral forms of parenting and relationships between mothers and children and between the families themselves. Women carry their children tied behind their backs during their first years of life.
That’s how they work, study, go to meetings and parties. Everything in which the mother participates, the child will also take part. Besides, they lack the economic means to hire babysitters for such extended periods of time. The absence of empathy was also expressed by traditional media that accused these organisations of being terrorist gangs and being led by mestizo leaders, citing their lack of ability to decide and act for themselves. This revealed a deep social crack that was important to amplify with my work as a communicator.
Q: You work in both video and photography. How do you combine the two tools?
When I was a child, I wanted to make films all my life, so I started my storytelling career with film studies. Then, cinema took me to photography. I felt that it was possible to synthesise in an image a lot of the content of the story immediately, without going through the long and expensive process of producing a movie. Now I think they are complementary languages. Also, I believe the fixed image alone is losing relevance and new ways of communication, which include video, text, interactivity, VR, and movement, are beginning to take over. In that sense, I am very interested in joining these tools when a story requires it.
Q: You have also experimented with multimedia and poetry in Chalchiutlicue (“The Water Goddess”). How did this collaboration occur and how did poetry influence your image making? Are there any poignant stories that you would like to share?
This collaboration arose in Tlacotalpan, Mexico, at the 20 Photographers Camp. That village has an important storytelling tradition and is home to some of the most famous decimeros (people who compose decasyllable verses) of Mexico. I am very interested in collaborative work and, on that occasion, I made contact with the decimero Porfirio Rosado. I asked him to create a text around Chalchiutlicue (the Aztecan goddess of water) and its relation to the River Papaloapan. That poem inspired me to generate the images. The final process was an intimate and poetic journey to the history of a town whose life revolves around the surrounding water.
I also feel that poetry is very important for my work because it is a tool that allows us to evoke feelings without solving anything literally. In my view, the most interesting images are those that allow me to ask questions and tell me my own stories, but also those in which I can almost feel a sensation.
Q: I can see that, throughout your career, you continue to be involved in collaborative projects. Is this something that you consciously look for?
Yes, totally. I think the photography process can involve several actors. If we stop thinking that photography is a communicative tool, we lose its true potential. This is why it is necessary for me to collaborate, not only with the subjects that I portray, but also with experts in other areas that can help me expand the narrative. For me, that idea of the lonely photographer has already been lost. The future is collaborative.
Q: You are a member of the Ruda Colectiva. Could you share more about the incentives and objectives behind the collective?
The Ruda Colectiva collective was conceived together with photographer Mayeli Villalba when we met in Paraguay. For us, it was very important to reflect on the lack of representation that women had in media, photo competitions and artistic photography. The problem was not only the few women who participate in these spaces, but also the way in which women are being represented. We also realised that there was a need for a voice that links the stories that touch us throughout all of Latin America. Thus, we summoned nine more Latin American women and today we are 11 ‘Rudas’.
We have two fundamental axes of action. The first is to work together on stories that cross us as a continent, as a territorial space. In that sense, we began by reflecting on what the territory means to us, as a way to get to know each other and understand the different realities of our countries.
Secondly, we are very interested in understanding the political, cultural and economic spaces we are taking as female photographers. In this sense, we have carried out a survey that yields important local data on the status of women photographers in Latin America. We are also generating documents such as protocols for action in cases of gender violence in workspaces and systematising the gatherings of women visual storytellers. All these documents we will make available to the public in 2020 as a digital resource. We are interested in research and reflect upon issues such as photography, migration, gender, sexuality, race and territory.
Click here to visit Isadora Romero’s website. You can also follow and connect with Isadora on Instagram and Twitter.
Verónica Sanchis Bencomo is the founder and curator of Foto Féminas, an online resource for promoting Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. For submissions, please visit our website.
You can also follow Foto Féminas on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
