Nicaragua '78

Title: Nicaragua '78

Photographer(s): Koen Wessing

Writer(s): Jan van der Putten

Designer(s): Jacques Janssen

Publisher(s): Van Gennep, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Year: 1978

Print run:

Language(s): Dutch

Pages: 56

Size: 20,5 x 26 cm

Binding: Softcover

Edition:

Print: C Huig bv, Zaandam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Year: 1978

Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Nicaragua, 1978

ISBN:

Koen Wessing often sought out people who were mourning the dead he had encountered, or people searching for their disappeared loved ones, their “desaparecidos”. In the photo from the series “Nicaragua 1978”, at a road junction on the edge of a village, two nuns walk past three patrolling soldiers. The road surface is shattered and the houses show no signs of human habitation. The eyes of nearly all the people appear to be focused on the photographer, making him part of the picture. These gazes and the dynamics of walking lend the image an undeniable tension, an almost theatrical character. These qualities and, above all, the photographer’s visible involvement in the event that he is capturing are typical features of Koen Wessing’s work. This picture is part of Wessing’s 1978 report about the city of Estelí in Nicaragua, which had been bombed by President Somoza’s army in an attempt to put a stop to the Sandinista offensive. The context of the photograph and Wessing’s position in the narrative, which he created in order to provide insight into a harsh social reality, are of at least equal importance.