We perceive the world through our senses. Studies show that for all cultures, the most important sense is sight, followed by hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Blindness in Africa is a much more severe disability than in Europe. Of the blind patients I photographed, none used a cane, and when I asked why, the doctors told me that living in the wilderness or the chaos of African cities meant blind people didn't leave their homes. In such depressed environments, the blindness of a family member also has a huge economic impact on the entire family.
The greatest gift one human being can give another is to save their life, and I think in Africa, the second best gift is to restore their sight.
We live in a world where inequalities are growing every second, reaching unbearable levels. Healthcare in Africa needs the medical expeditions that come from the developing world, especially now that medicine uses such highly advanced technology.
The Rementería Foundation invited me to travel with their ophthalmological expedition to Thies, Senegal, to restore sight to 240 people in one week. They barely gave me time to reply, and the assignment had nothing to do with what I normally photograph. The easiest thing would have been to dismiss it, but something moved me to answer affirmatively without thinking twice. The night before, I had seen Akiro Kurosawa's 1952 film "Vivier." The film begins with a voiceover describing the character, an elderly civil servant who spends his dreary hours stamping the applications and lawsuits that pile up on his desk. The clerk is played by a man.
By the wonderful actor Takashi Shimura: "This is the protagonist of our story, but it would be boring to talk about him now, since he's just killing time. He passes by life. In fact, he's hardly alive at all..."
I haven't left a mark on my life, nor do I have anything to do with this man, but the idea of not making better use of my days made me see the adventure of going to Senegal as part of a medical expedition as an opportunity and a gift. Then came the worry of how to complete, in just seven days, this assignment that would ultimately materialize into a book.
Laureano, the surgeon who restores light to people, asked me on the second day in Thies, "What is it like to photograph blind people?"
I was petrified. I realized I wasn't photographing blind people; I wasn't recording their absence, but rather directing their attention toward me. The fact that they were blind didn't matter; I had before me the best subjects of my long career as a photographer.
When it came to photographing them, I went all in, taking close-ups because if I retreated any further, the necessary tension between model and photographer and the enormous power these human beings could project would be completely lost. So, with a heavy heart, I had to forgo the fabulous wardrobe, the wonderful prints, and the textures of the fabrics so as not to lose the superlative being before me.
Expedition to Thies opens with some background images to help us understand and locate where its protagonists live.
These are photographs of the beauty of its wild landscape and images of the city's atmosphere, in which I have avoided reflecting harsh reality. As a photographer, I have never been interested in poverty, marginalization, or violence. I have always constructed a discourse based on artistic freedom, reflecting only that which moves me. I have left out of this final edition many descriptive photos in my obsession with conceptualizing the work and not making a documentary report. The book closes with a sequence of light that anarchically entered the hospital, seeping in through every crack. Light is the protagonist of this story, and those who return it are its heroes. Thank you to the Rementería Foundation, thank you to Adela Parra, Mariluz Capelo, and Laureano Álvarez Rementería, thank you to the medical team and volunteers, thank you all for your example, commitment, generosity, and love for those most in need.
Rementería Foundation, by Dr. Laureano Álvarez-Rementería.
The foundation's mission is to make eye health accessible to everyone, as my father used to say, "do good without looking at who."
In surgical expeditions, we try to restore sight to those who have lost it, so they can live a more dignified life.
In this book, Jorge has managed to abstract himself from the hustle and bustle of the consulting rooms, the hospital, the hallways, and the operating rooms to give us an artistic vision of what we do in Africa.
Jorge has been able to portray the gaze of those who cannot see.
Thanks Jorge.
Thanks to all of you who make it possible.
And thanks to the buyers of this book, who contribute to making all this possible.
