ETIOPÍA // Juan Manuel Castro Prieto
02/05/17 – 18/06/17
OCTUBRE CENTRO DE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA
THURSDAY MAY 4TH // 17.30H.
CONFERENCIA JUAN MANUEL CASTRO PRIETO
AULA MAGNA . CENTRE CULTURAL LA NAU
This exhibition is the result of four trips to the African country carried out by Juan Manuel Castro Prieto between 2001 and 2006. The characters travelling through his photographs show with dignity the social, cultural and religious variety of an exotic and timeless country, allowing the author show one of the characteristics of his work, his interest in the nature of the human being.
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto understands photography as a tool for the representation of feelings. In his trips to Ethiopia, Castro Prieto focuses his eyes on ancestral and primitive components that are confronted with the gradual introduction of Western elements. The author claims to find the symbolism, metaphor and introspection in photography and he avoids being tagged as photojournalist.
In the words of the artist: “Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that was never colonized and that has marked deep differences with the rest of the continent. In Ethiopia you can find scenes, lifestyles, situations that belong to ancient times. The work that I did there was a personal project, not a report. There is no problem behind this picture; I’m not a photojournalist and I didn’t go looking for this type of photo. My purpose in Ethiopia was to find what remains of the ancestral memory of human beings and see how this form of ancient life is been contaminated with Western culture”.
