“A la sombra de Las Palmas” (The shadow of Las Palmas)

Sixteen years ago, the brothers Miguel and Fermín Sierra were internally displaced because of the civil war, a faith shared by many other Colombian families. Originally from Las Palmas, they had to abandon their little Caribbean village after a massacre perpetrated by a paramilitary group, each taking a different path. These images, through the observation of their everyday life in the spaces they currently live in, explore the meaning of the distance and the absence of the other. They dive into the intimacy of two different worlds. On the one hand, the lonely life of the older brother, who decided shortly after the massacre to come back to the abandoned village. On the other hand, the younger brother who exchanged the routine of the countryside for a city life. This photo series is a subjective interpretation of the effects of war and uprooting. Indeed, the worn out walls in the background illustrate the rural life of Miguel, the older brother, and are a metaphor for older times that shouldn’t be forgotten. The elements that surround Fermin, the younger sibling, evoke the nostalgia for the years he has spent apart from his land and are the symbol of his hope of returning. This visual poetry project contemplates the internal forced displacements in Colombia from another perspective than the usual language of photojournalism. A window is opened for the spectator to engage in the visual dialogue between their own experience and the memories of others.