Heroes Olvidados (Forgotten Heroes)

This series is a tribute to Colombian Farmers - one of the largest, if not the largest, group of people affected by the armed conflict in Colombia.

When I came to Colombia in 2014 after living abroad, I realised how badly our farmers were treated by the government, and how diminishing in a country like Colombia is to be a farmer, in Comparison with other countries, were working the land is as important as a doctor, a lawyer and even a politician! 

I moved to live in the mountains of Colombia for a couple of years, and I got to engage and establish friendships with farmers at the markets for months and it was amazing! I fell in love with the way they look and the way they speak, their hats and clothes, and how many things you can tell they have been through just by looking at their hands and faces. 

Doing this Project was a great experience! It was hard at the beginning as the farmers don’t really like having their picture taken, but at the same time, that made our friendship stronger, as I had started making friends with them over the past months, buying vegetables from them, having lunch with them and even dancing with them! 

I remember when I took  Maria Chiquinquira Castellanos´s portrait,  A.K.A ¨Chinguita¨, after months of getting to know each other we agreed that we would picked her up in town after the market was finished,  then we came to our house, my mum had prepared ¨Sancocho¨ 1 soup, we sat at the table, we started chatting, eating and having some beers, I asked ¨Chinguita¨ what was her favourite music, she said ¨Carranga 2 sumerce!¨*3 so I played some Carranga music and it was just amazing to see my dad and Chinguita standing up straight away dancing to the music for a long while. It was a great moment, soon after that I took her portrait.

I decided for this project to be in black and white because I want the viewer to really engage with the farmer as a person, to notice the hard labour they do through; their faces, there hands and the clothing, I felt that for this project colour might take the viewers attention off from what I really wanted to say, it goes the same for choosing the white background and isolating them from their surroundings. We all know what a farmer does, we all know their tasks and their work, but I feel, especially in big cities, we don’t get to engage with them on a personal level, and that is what I am trying to do with these portraits. Showing the affect work has on them, rather than the work environment itself. 

With these portraits I would like people to reflect on the importance that farmers have in our daily life, every time we sit at the dinner table, it’s their work that is in front of us, yet we don’t care for them and we don’t push our government (Colombian) to treat them right. If we don’t look after them and we keep on allowing the killing, exile and illegal land exploitation, soon we won't have food to eat. 

I would like to encourage the viewer to look at each portrait for at least a couple of minutes, to look at the details in their hands, their faces and their clothing, imagining the story that leans behind each of them, stories of love, friendship and war; Of decades working the land during the most violent years that Colombia has ever lived. That is why I call them HEROES, despite the waves of terror, massacres and exile in Colombia, they kept on going to the field, feeding us in our comfort.

 Today when things have eased a little, and we face new challenges (Corruption) let's don’t FORGET them, let's help them, let's buy locally, let's encourage small business and farmers that have gone through sweat and tears during decades of violence.

60 years of civil war in Colombia was close to coming to an end in 2016 by a peace agreement signed by the government and the FARC. 60 years of atrocities, slaughter and exile, fields covered in farmers blood at the hands of both, the Guerrillas and the Colombian Government. 

I want this series of portraits to be a tribute to them - To our FORGOTTEN HEROES - one of the largest, if not the largest group of people affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. 

*1 Sancocho is a typical Colombian soup from the Valle del Cauca region made out of plantain, chicken beef and pork stock, potatoes and coriander.

*2 Carranga is most known Colombians farmer´s popular music from the Boyaca region. 

*3 Sumerce It is very old way yet still, a common word used in Boyaca region which is a respectful way of saying You.