Finalist 2015
Alma Cecilia Suarez
Alma Cecilia Suarez does not consider herself a photographer. According to her, photography is a tool, not a purpose. What interests her is the image itself. Whether it is an archive image, a moving one or a photo by another artist: she appropriates the image for her own purposes.
She started with « Jannis », a project using typologies of various images, giving a complex portrait of a Chinese immigrant in Singapore. This book has been presented at the « Paris Photo First Photobooks Awards 2014 », in the exhibition « l’Art se Livre » at the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Locle, then adapted in video for « La nuit des images » at the Musée de l’Elysée. The work is now part of the collection of the Musée de l’Elysée and in the Swiss National Library.
Alma Cecilia Suarez is currently living at Fabrica, a communication research center in Treviso founded by the Benetton family.
She started with « Jannis », a project using typologies of various images, giving a complex portrait of a Chinese immigrant in Singapore. This book has been presented at the « Paris Photo First Photobooks Awards 2014 », in the exhibition « l’Art se Livre » at the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Locle, then adapted in video for « La nuit des images » at the Musée de l’Elysée. The work is now part of the collection of the Musée de l’Elysée and in the Swiss National Library.
Alma Cecilia Suarez is currently living at Fabrica, a communication research center in Treviso founded by the Benetton family.
1948/2013, 2015
Beijing, the 31st March 2013. On the platform of the People’s Square, a man is manifesting and is being taken away by the police. The silent crowd stands still staring and filming the scene, just like me. Paris, on the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, President of the Human Rights Commission, poses for the photo.
Official photographs illustrating this historical moment make the front-page news. Sixty-five years later, amateur footage witnessing obstacles to freedom of expression will remain unseen due to censorship. While freedom of expression is restrained, the refusal to keep quiet is mediated through the image. The violated and prohibited image disturbs because it is a witness of violations. Hence, « everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of boarders. »
My work reflects on the « passive actors » of freedom of expression, those who immortalize it. Today, more than ever, the image, whether it validates or denounces, is the key mean and vector of freedom of expression.
Official photographs illustrating this historical moment make the front-page news. Sixty-five years later, amateur footage witnessing obstacles to freedom of expression will remain unseen due to censorship. While freedom of expression is restrained, the refusal to keep quiet is mediated through the image. The violated and prohibited image disturbs because it is a witness of violations. Hence, « everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of boarders. »
My work reflects on the « passive actors » of freedom of expression, those who immortalize it. Today, more than ever, the image, whether it validates or denounces, is the key mean and vector of freedom of expression.
© Alma Cecilia Suarez
