Latin America’s beauty and sadness captured

Photographer Martin Weber provides Latin Americans with the opportunity to express their dreams… Photographer Martin Weber provides Latin Americans with the opportunity to express their dreams in their own words in his exhibition at Silver Eye Center for Photography. The Center’s Fellowship 2008 award recipient, Weber’s photographs portray black and white portraits of Latin Americans holding up blackboards on which they have written their hopes and dreams. His artwork is a stunning example of a social documentary with a message determined by its subjects. The portraits are solemn in black and white and clearly staged in their carefully composed narratives. Their messages provide a hopeful beacon of solace in the midst of the subjects’ lives, which are represented by the heartbreaking visual narrative.’ In one photograph, a family sits around a table playing dominoes and passing the time, holding a sign that reads, ‘I dream of one day returning home,’ while in another, a young girl sits on the aluminum roof of a ramshackle house holding a sign that wishes ‘that one day [her] parents will smile again.’ Often, the portraits also highlight the serious undertones of a seemingly innocent type of dream, such as a child’s aspirations.’ In one piece, a young girl hopes, ‘I want to be a police woman,’ while a young boy points a toy gun at her, increasing the weight of her wish. Weber, who is Argentinean, currently livingin Brooklyn, N.Y., began working on his ongoing project in 1992 and has since taken more than 160 images in eight countries. Weber uses a 4-by-5-foot field camera, which is often used by large format photographers who need portability, to take his photographs. Weber prints each photograph himself, which contributes to the intimacy of the projects, as he uses his hands to develop dreams that his subjects’ communicate with their hands. By handwriting their dreams and symbolically holding their dreams in their hands, the people in Weber’s photographs utilize their power to write the narrative of their own lives, which many might not otherwise have the chance to do. ‘Many of these people live in fear or poverty,’ said Amanda Bloomfield, communications manager at Silver Eye, ‘and Weber gives them the opportunity and power to express their desires for a different and often better life. By participating in Weber’s project, the people in his photographs are preserving their own story and ability to dream.’ Weber captures people who live in an often unstable world, preserving them in one moment in the history of their hopes and dreams.’ By focusing on hopes and dreams, universal experiences shared by everyone, Weber’s portraits are relatable on an intimate level.’ Weber’s portraits provide a direct line of communication between the Latin Americans in his prints and the viewer in Pittsburgh, creating a relationship between two different worlds that otherwise might not intersect.’ The 2008 fellowship received 299 submissions from 35 states and two foreign countries. This year’s exhibition also features one print each by 10 honorable mention recipients, three of whom are from Pittsburgh. The fellowship’s goal is simply to share the contemporary work of emerging and mid-career photographers, both local and international, with the Pittsburgh community.’ Because the fellowship is open to all subjects and styles, the exhibitions often vary greatly from year to year. In the past, the fellowship, in its ninth year, has selected landscapes, portraits, still lifes, digital prints and hand-toned silver gelatin prints, including last year’s exhibition, which featured black-and-white photographs of household objects masquerading as science experiments, and the 2006 exhibition, which featured vivid views of Vietnam. ‘Every year there is a new juror that is an expert in the field of photography who brings a new perspective to choosing from the submissions,’ said Bloomfield, ‘which are also changing each year.’