Screening and Presentation: Laurence Salzmann "On Mexico"

Photographs by Laurence Salzmann "On Mexico"

Saturday, February 12, 2011
15:00
Pera Museum Oditoryum

Meşrutiyet Caddesi

34443 Tepebasi – Beyoglu / Istanbul

The event is free of charge

Laurence Salzmann a native of Philadelphia has been working as a photographer/ filmmaker since the early 1960's. His projects document the lives of little known groups in America and abroad. He looks at the lives of people ranging from occupants of single room occupancy hotels in New York City to transhumant shepherds in Transylvania, residents of a Mexican village, and Philadelphia Mummers. His photographic study of a nearly extinct Jewish community in Romania was published as The Last Jews of Radauti by Dial/Doubleday in 1983, with text by Ayse Gürsan-Salzmann. His most recent work in Cuba is soon to be published in book form by Blue Flower  Press under the title: La Lucha/The Struggle. Salzmann's photographic method is deeply informed by his background in anthropology and involves long term participation in and observation of groups or events. His work illustrates how lives and events are shaped by the environments and conditions in which people live.

"Echeleganas: A Life Left Behind" is a documentary that addresses the perpetual drive of immigrant ambition, in this case, of Mexican immigrants, who have left their villages to seek work  in support of their families and communities. The film is a cultural model of a rural Mexican community that informs the audience about whom these "immigrants" are, or who they were before they left home in search of economically satisfying opportunities in North America. The documentary shows the workers' sense of Mexican cultural identity, their pride in still being part of their community. It shows, too, the ways in which their communities are changing, often as a direct result of the financial aid they are able to send to their families.