Title: Camaratres. Uruguay 1983--1985
Photographer(s): José Luis Sosa, Cyro Giambruno
Writer(s): Magdalena Broquetas, Isabel Wschebor
Designer(s): Andrés Cribari
Publisher(s): Centro de la Fotografia CdF, Montevideo, Uruguay
Year: 2015
Print run:
Language(s): Spanish
Pages: 96
Size: 21 x 21 cm
Binding: Softcover
Edition: 2nd edition Centro de la Fotografia CdF, Montevideo, Uruguay,2019
Print:
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Uruguay, 1983-1985
ISBN: 978-9974-716-10-0
Since its beginnings, one of the CdF's lines of work has been to recover and disseminate images related to Uruguay's recent past.
During the dictatorship (1973-1985), in a context of suppression of freedoms and strict control of the information disseminated in the media, both the production and circulation of photographs that contradicted the image that the regime sought to give of itself were severely limited. The effects of these limitations extend to the present day because, given their scarcity and dispersion, the photographs are difficult to access.
In the midst of the transition period - although in the midst of arbitrary imprisonment and press censorship - José Luis Sosa, Cyro Giambruno and Maga Acosta y Lara formed Camaratres, a photographic agency that combined political militancy and a taste for photography and which, together with the work of other photojournalists, counteracted this lack of non-official images.
It was an Uruguayan agency that sold its images to national and foreign media, keeping the archive of negatives and the power to decide on their destination and use. Thus, the name Camaratres allowed the photographers to remain anonymous, while the intellectual and commercial ownership of the photographs remained unknown.
Representing many of the events that marked the last years of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy, the images produced by this collective, which had several collaborators*, supplied the opposition press in Uruguay and photographic agencies in other countries.
The images of Camaratres are at the same time testimonies of the resistance against the dictatorship, of the history of Uruguayan photojournalism and of the long process towards the recognition of authors' rights.
The richness and originality of this archive and the willingness of its photographers to collaborate with this line of work motivated the creation of this exhibition in which part of the memory and history of Uruguay's recent past coexist.
*Other Camaratres collaborators were: Sengo Pérez, Jorge Vidart, Yuyo Rasmussem, Nelson Wainstein and Marcelo Isarrualde.
From the CdF site.
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