ATOQ RAMÓN
LIMA / PERÚ
PROJECT: MAL DE OJO
Although the last Peruvian civil war has silently remained among us the violence didn’t end up in 2000 with the statistics of 70,000 murdered people, 3 out 4 indigenous. There are almost 15,000 missing people and their families are still seeking justicie.
There’s no silence about it. At least not anymore in the last years. The urban protests of a postwar generation has broke the self-censorship and burst into the streets. It is my generation, the one born in the middle of “coches bomba”, missing students and generalized fear to express opinions against a dictatorship that was “fighting terrorism.”
For my generation, those half silenced war stories already sound distant.
Since I took the camera for the first time, five years ago, I have used it to photograph the violence unleashed on the streets of Lima, to express my nonconformity. In 2014, with other four photographers we founded the photo collective “MaldeOjo” (evil eye). Many ancient cultures in the world, including the Andean believe that receiving the evil eye will cause misfortune or injury. It is also the power to inflict harm on person by gaze.
Documenting this process have always had some minor risks, such as threats, beatings or a cop breaking my camera. But this January 5th 2017, while covering a protest north of Lima, the police shot me. From a police tank I was targeted and shot pellet bullets. One of them went through my left eye.
