Finalists 2015
Alma Cecilia Suarez
Alma Cecilia Suarez does not consider herself as 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 realised by others, the image is appropriated for her own purposes.
She started with « Jannis », a project using typologies of various images and 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 has gained a place in the collection of the Musée de l’Elysée and in the Swiss National Library.
Alma Cecilia Suarez is currently living at Fabrica, a research centre on communication in Treviso founded by the Benetton family.
She started with « Jannis », a project using typologies of various images and 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 has gained a place in the collection of the Musée de l’Elysée and in the Swiss National Library.
Alma Cecilia Suarez is currently living at Fabrica, a research centre on communication in Treviso founded by the Benetton family.
1948/2013, 2015
« Beijing, on the 31st of 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 stares still and films 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 footages witnessing obstacles to freedom of expression will remain not visualized 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 frontiers. »
My work reflects on the « passive actors » of this 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 the freedom of expression. »
Alma Cecilia Suarez
www.almaceciliasuarez.com
Official photographs illustrating this historical moment make the front-page news. Sixty-five years later, amateur footages witnessing obstacles to freedom of expression will remain not visualized 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 frontiers. »
My work reflects on the « passive actors » of this 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 the freedom of expression. »
Alma Cecilia Suarez
www.almaceciliasuarez.com
© Alma Cecilia Suarez
