Pérez, M 2021, Fotografía y Política. La lucha por la democracia en Panamá, virtual exhibition catalogue | 2021, enhanced rE-print, EdiXion, Dubai.
Photography as archaeology of the present. In this curatorial project, news images are transformed into tessellae of a historical mosaic to reconstruct Panama’s most tormented decades. For thirty years, until 1989, the country became the theatre of military coups, civil protests, fierce political repression, up to the American invasion. In this match, emerging democracy and major international interests for control of the Canal confronted each other.
An enhanced book as unrepeatable testimony. This volume represents the re-print of an important publication, now impossible to find. Its rediscovery responds to one of EdiXion’s fundamental objectives: making unique documents available to the international cultural community that would risk being lost forever. The project stems from the collaboration between Maylin Pérez, founder of the Fototeca de Panamá and included in the Art Consulting network, and Marina Pizziolo and Romano Ravasio, founders of EdiXion. The enhanced version powerfully restores the voices of the protagonists through an immersive soundscape: urban noises, the gunshots of repression, the drama of those years relives through audio inserts that add a unique sensory dimension to the photographic narrative.
Crucial events take shape through the lens. The photographs reconstruct the events following the signing of the Torrijos-Carter treaties, which guaranteed the return of Canal control to the country. Colour photographs and the severe black and white of news coverage document the 1984 presidential campaign, the demonstrations after Hugo Spadafora’s death in 1985, the civil protests of 1987-1989, up to the American invasion of 20 December 1989 that marks the climax of this dramatic sequence.
An archive becomes a machine of collective memory. Ricardo Arias Calderón, former vice-president of Panama, observed: “The country can no longer be a prisoner of its past. Memory is alive, but the future is open”. In 2013, photographer Marcos Guerra donated approximately seven thousand negatives documenting political campaigns from 1984 to 1989, after the 1968 military coup. The curatorial work strategically combines public and private archives: besides the Guerra archive, the project includes photographs from various institutional collections, journalistic archives and the personal archives of José Ángel Murillo, Héctor Endara Hill and Alcides Rodríguez, who have safeguarded this visual heritage for decades, thus preserving the country’s historical memory for future generations.
Enhanced content of the book. Explore the multimedia materials embedded:
– p. 2: Maylin Pérez. The Struggle for Democracy in Panama
– p. 5: Military Repression, 1988. La Prensa Collection
– p. 8: Conversation between Panamanian Photographer José A. Murillo and Maylin Pérez
– p. 15: Riots of 9 June 1987. La Prensa Collection
– p. 18: Great Civilist March, 1988. La Prensa Collection
– p. 23: Visit the Virtual Exhibition Fotografía y Política (VR content)
