Curiepe

Curiepe is a photo series set in Barlovento, Venezuela, celebrating its vibrant Afro-Venezuelan festivities where dance, music, and ritual merge. Centred on water as a symbol of life, renewal, and transformation, it explores spirituality, free

Curiepe is a photo series that explores a magical land where dance, music, and nature intertwine to convey stories of fertility, birth, and transformation. Drawing on magico-religious traditions in Venezuela, such as the devotion to San Juan Bautista and the Burial of the Sardine where the images honour and celebrate the living culture of Curiepe, its people, and their traditions.

Central to this exploration is water, used as both a visual and symbolic metaphor. It becomes a symbol of life and passage, guiding us through the emotional and spiritual processes of existence. From birth, to falling in love, to the discovery of one’s other, water reflects the fluidity of becoming. It mirrors the movement of life itself, always shifting, always flowing, always renewing.

Curiepe also delves into the act of coming of age: moments of awakening, self-discovery, and freedom. Through the motif of submersion, the series captures that suspended stage of life where one connects most deeply with joy, with the body, with pleasure. Water is not just a backdrop, but a transformative force, one that allows the individual to be free, alive, and uncontained.

Immersed in the trance of the drums, the transcendence of dance, and the renewing force of water, the celebration with its playful and seductive energy becomes a threshold between the real and the dreamlike. At its heart stands the woman, a symbol of creation, continuity, and the connection between past and present.

This work continues a broader commitment to preserving and reimagining the visual memory of Venezuela. Through years of work and numerous projects, Silvana Trevale has dedicated herself to honouring and reinterpreting the country’s visual narrative, and the communities that shape it.

This project took place in Curiepe, a town in Barlovento, Venezuela, which is known as one of the country’s most vibrant Afro-Venezuelan communities, where traditions, rhythms, and collective memory remain deeply alive.