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A broken family in Colombia

2021-07-26T13:57:43.400Z


Andrés Cardona portrays violence in Colombia through the history of his family. His mother, father and others of his were killed during the conflict. He reviews his drama by combining documentary photography with family album and theatricality.


  • 1

    “Drowning is a recurring dream of my childhood,”

    writes Andrés Cardona.

    “He lived in a small house with three rooms. There were five of us. In my dream the bodies of my relatives were drowned. This photo is a staging that I made to represent those nightmares ”.



    After several years of documenting the violence in my country, Colombia, I decided to turn the camera towards my own family and go to Puerto Rico —in the department of Caquetá—, a town located in the middle of the Amazon.


    Andres Cardona

  • 2

    “The woman in the photograph above is my mother, Luz Mercy Cruz. On September 3, 1993, she was assassinated during a massacre perpetrated by the military when she was organizing a workshop with peasants. I was three years old. "



    There, over six decades of conflict, around 20 relatives of mine have been murdered. Among them, my father and mother. They were killed by members of the Colombian military forces. The State. Their crime. It was being peasants, thinking differently, being on the left, being ordinary people who demanded their rights.


    Andrés Cardona

  • 3

    "A canoe on the Guayas River, which is next to my town. I spent my childhood there, violence came there and the cycle did not end."



    They had no trial or the right to defend themselves. My uncle Noé told me that he was tortured by military to force him to declare that he was a guerrilla. And I remember the words of my grandmother María, during this project, when she told me: "The only thing I needed was crying blood." Many believe that my story is impressive. But in reality it is simply a reflection of countless similar stories that have been and are still lived in Latin America


    Andrés Cardona

  • 4

    “An uncle of mine was part of the FARC guerrilla. He is the man in the picture. After the peace agreement with the Government, he laid down his arms. This photograph was taken in 2017 in a space of reincorporation to civil life. "



    It is yet another tragedy of a society that has naturalized violence and has endured injustice for decades. My mother, Luz Mercy Cruz, carried the The task of recovering my father's body. She succeeded, but months later she was also murdered. Today, three decades later, I am the one who has the responsibility of finding my mother's body in this country that is a mass grave.


    Andrés Cardona

  • 5

    “A photograph from our family album.

    It was 1993. We had come together to bury the decomposed corpses of my father and my uncle, killed by the military, as demonstrated in a judicial process.

    My mother, in the center left, is holding a bouquet of flowers.

    I am the little boy who cries next to him ”.

    Andres Cardona

  • 6

    "My grandmother María Vargas, mother of my father, Hernando, and my uncle Aldemar, murdered by the military. As a child, she saw her father die at the hands of conservative militants. She died of coronavirus in 2020."

    Andrés Cardona

  • 7

    “This photograph was sent to my family by that uncle of mine who was part of the FARC.

    In 2000 the image had to be buried in the courtyard of the house because the paramilitaries arrived in town and a wave of terror began.

    If they saw this photo, they could kill them all. "

    Andrés Cardona

  • 8

    “My Uncle Noah.

    He related to me that he was tortured by the military for two weeks in 1987;

    that, baselessly accusing him of being a guerrilla, they hung him from a tree by his arms, they broke his clavicle, they pulled out his nails. "

    Andrés Cardona

  • 9

    "My cousin Aldemar, whose father was murdered along with mine by the military. They were thrown into a common grave. Today his remains rest in the same ossuary in the cemetery that is seen in the image. I am still looking for my mother's body, well It seems that she was buried in the pantheon of a town in southern Colombia without being recognized. ”

    Andrés Cardona

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-07-26

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