Bright eyes…
When we approached Patricia Oliart, a Peruvian anthropologist from Cusco based in the School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University, to introduce the Martín Chambi/John Cohen exhibition and film at the Side Gallery on 12 July, little did we suspect that she would have not only professional, but personal, links to both these key figures in indigenous photography and documentary.
Patricia was John Cohen's field assistant when he did his film Mountain Music of Peru (1984). One of the recordings from Mountain Music of Peru was included on the Voyager Spacecraft "Music of the Earth", the sound of a Peruvian girl singing an unaccompanied huayno song travels out beyond the solar system!
More unexpected perhaps were the personal links to Chambi. For more than twenty years, Martín Chambi balanced his extensive travels outside of Cuzco to photograph archaeological sites, landscapes, and indigenous communities with a successful studio business. His adoption of conventions derived from European art photography, particularly the stylized effects of Pictorialism and natural sky-light in studio portraiture, formed the foundation for his studio's commercial success. Two portraits of Patricia taken by Chambi when she was just four years old have pride of place in her mother’s home back in Lima. She remembers Chambi being obsessed with capturing the glint in young Patricia’s eyes. Patricia on the other hand remembers the wobble of the bench she had to stand on and being proud as punch of her shiny new bag and shoes!