Navia

Caconda School (1996)

There is an intimate connection between photography and other artistic disciplines. As if their similar composition –memory, imagination, humanism– were stronger than the differences of their format and they were inevitably destined to embrace each other. Navia’s work is strongly liked to literature, which is reflected in the way he represents the world.

The Madrid-born photographer traveled to Angola with Action Against Hunger in 1996, at a time when the former Portuguese colony was in the midst of a civil war. Under those circumstances, he traveled to Caconda, a poverty-stricken region in west central Angola.

A setback caused them to be “trapped” in Caconda longer than expected. Navia used this circumstance as an opportunity to photograph what happens when nothing particularly relevant happens: life itself.

The author realized that the weight of history is carried by those who survive the news events. Silent men and women who keep getting up every day to make the world go round. This work, Caconda School, exposes our fellow human beings, nothing simpler than life itself unfolding.

Navia
© Navia, 2019

José Manuel Navia

Madrid, 1957

José Manuel Navia is one of the most literary photographers on the contemporary Spanish scene. Throughout his career he has traveled to many places in the world where Iberians left their mark. He seeks to capture timeless atmospheres and is an advocate of small cameras and fixed lenses of between 35 and 50 millimeters, which is why he never uses flash or tripods. He has admitted that the artist from whom he has learned the most is photographer Diane Arbus.

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