The ninth edition of the Latin American Foto Festival is on view in New York from 11 to 26 July, hosted by the Bronx Documentary Center. The exhibition brings together the work of photographers exploring social, environmental and political issues from across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Photographers and Their Projects
Chris Perez's ongoing project Dominican focuses on the rural communities of Guardarraya and Baitoa in the Dominican Republic, where his father was born. Through portraits of family and community members, he explores questions about identity, belonging and cultural inheritance.
Cristian Ochoa's Lo Oscuro del Río combines photographs, archival materials, press records and interviews to investigate decades of harm caused by mining and water exploitation in Chile's Atacama desert. His work highlights the resilience of local communities as they fight back.
Laura Garcia documents the Guardianas del Lago (Guardians of the Lake), a group of Tz'utujil Maya women working to restore Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands. Since 2023, Garcia's series shows the women responding to pollution and advocating for structural change to protect their communities' sustainable future.
Sports, Culture and Indigenous Rights
Caio Vilela's Football Without Borders project showcases the universal love for soccer, documenting the game across Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. His book Futebol-Arte: Do Oiapoque ao Chuí features images from all 27 Brazilian states.
Rafael Vilela's photograph captures Neusa Quadros, leader of the Pindomirim village in São Paulo, Brazil. Quadros led a land-back movement that established an entire village within the Jaraguá Indigenous land as a strategy to protect it from invasions and illegal activities such as deforestation and hunting.
Santiago Mesa's image shows Marleni Birry and her father Dilfido Birry in the Emberá Dobida community of Puerto Antioquia, Colombia. The photograph is part of a series documenting the aftermath of a suicide attempt by Marleni's mother, Liria Cheito, who endured repeated mistreatment by her husband.
Environmental and Social Issues
Marco Garro's photograph from 2007 shows children playing next to a metal fence separating the city of Cerros de Pasco, Peru, from an open mine more than 2km in diameter and 400 meters deep.
Karla Gachet's series Cumbia en Mi Tierra, in collaboration with Ivan Kashinsky and NPR, documents communities keeping the tradition of cumbia music alive across six countries.
Matias Delacroix's image shows Venezuelan migrant Alvaro Calderini carrying his niece across a river in the Darién Gap, Panama, after walking from Colombia on their way north to the United States. Delacroix's long-term project Venezuela in Flux documents the economic, social and political transformation of Venezuela from 2019 to 2024, including reverse migration caused by shifting asylum policies under the Trump administration.
Alejandra Orosco's A Dream in Blue explores the disappearance of indigo, a color with deep roots in Peruvian textiles for over 6,000 years. Her photographs focus on the Pumaqwasin artisan group in Chinchero, which is working to reforest the indigo plant.
Alicia Vera's Va a Llover Toda la Noche project includes a photograph of her mother in Mexico City a year before her Alzheimer's diagnosis in 2018, showing symptoms such as memory loss and mood changes.
