El Cerro Rico de Potosí: The Flip Side Of a Silver Coin
Photographer: Marina Dego
Exhibit Title: El Cerro Rico de Potosí: The Flip Side Of a Silver Coin
Location: Bolivia
“Abandon every hope, ye who enter here”
Dante, Inferno
It’s a dark world the one that lies underneath Potosí. It’s pitch black, in stark contrast with the intense light that shines on one of the highest cities in the world, a maze of dusty streets, unaware of their glorious past. It is estimated that over 8 million people died in Cerro Rico’s mines since the treasures that they protected were discovered in 1545. A huge price to pay to satisfy the insatiable hunger for precious metals and minerals which sadly did not diminish with the twilight of the Spanish empire and it is today a cause of conflict and deaths in our so-called modern world.
Potosí has a double face: one, once beautiful and radiant, and now disfigured by deep scars, and one that lays hidden under the ground, in the shadows, treacherous. In the rarefied air of the Andean Plateau, this city seems to be a loud, yet not listened to enough, warning against the shifting fortunes of all power games and politics craving for riches.
There are so many stories that deserve to be given a voice. This project, realized in 2023, is today as relevant, with frequent deadly collapses in the tunnels of Cerro Rico, reported to be on the brink of crumbling down.
I believe that it is a responsibility we should all embrace, and especially those who use photography as a language: to have the curiosity and sensibility to widen our gaze in all directions, even those that might disturb, or hurt. Often, even there, or perhaps especially there, one finds incredible evidence of life, and so much wonder. I thank photography for giving me the possibility to become a better observer, to ask more questions, to strive for authenticity.
marina.dj@gmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/marinadego_photography/
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