In this film from 1991, we go behind the scenes of Wendy Ewald’s groundbreaking collaborative project conducted in Chiapas, Mexico. Here, young people describe their experiences of using the camera to explore their daily lives, the traditions and customs of their society, and their private dreams, desires, and fantasies.
Thursday 30 June
18:00 BST London
13:00 EDT New York
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About The Devil is leaving his Cave
In 1991, Wendy Ewald was invited to conduct photography classes for Maya, Ladino, and Tzotzil children living in Chiapas, the southernmost province of Mexico. While cameras were hardly novelties in Chiapas, they were generally used by tourists whose picture-taking tended to reinforce their own cultural biases. Ewald guided her students to take their own photographs, depicting their daily lives, dreams, desires, and fantasies. These briefs resonated with the significance of dreams in Maya culture, which considers them as real as waking life.
This book brings together Ewald’s original project with new work made in 2019 to 2021 in collaboration with fifteen young Mexican Americans living in Chicago. Responding to many of the same subjects as those of Ewald’s 1990s students, these images capture inner lives and dreams as a way of reckoning with the unvoiced experiences of immigration. Together, these projects trace the experiences of growing up in different Mexican geographies with diverse histories, and form an extended reflection on the joys and sorrows of childhood.
Find out more and order copies here
Thursday 30 June
18:00 BST London
13:00 EDT New York
Sign up for a reminder here.
About The Devil is leaving his Cave
In 1991, Wendy Ewald was invited to conduct photography classes for Maya, Ladino, and Tzotzil children living in Chiapas, the southernmost province of Mexico. While cameras were hardly novelties in Chiapas, they were generally used by tourists whose picture-taking tended to reinforce their own cultural biases. Ewald guided her students to take their own photographs, depicting their daily lives, dreams, desires, and fantasies. These briefs resonated with the significance of dreams in Maya culture, which considers them as real as waking life.
This book brings together Ewald’s original project with new work made in 2019 to 2021 in collaboration with fifteen young Mexican Americans living in Chicago. Responding to many of the same subjects as those of Ewald’s 1990s students, these images capture inner lives and dreams as a way of reckoning with the unvoiced experiences of immigration. Together, these projects trace the experiences of growing up in different Mexican geographies with diverse histories, and form an extended reflection on the joys and sorrows of childhood.
Find out more and order copies here
