“Andeans: encounters in Cusco”, a photographic book that breaks with the clichés about the inhabitants of that region

The postcards that the Andes of Peru give to its visitors are those that are kept forever in memory. Imposing hills, splendid valleys and people considered exotic are part of the evoked landscape, but that almost always corresponds to a foreign gaze, far from the real context that surrounds them. That disconnection was the starting point for “Andinos: Encounters in Cusco” by Gabriel Barreto Bentín, a project that was born more than five years ago when the photographer visited the imperial city for the first time. It was May 2016 and that adventure provoked a series of questions that little by little were transferred to the visual field, from an anthropological perspective. For Barreto there is a dichotomy about the perception of the inhabitants of this region. “On the one hand, they are seen in a romanticized way by imagining that they live as they told us in the History of Peru course. And, on the other hand, it is believed that all the inhabitants are poor and uneducated. This dichotomy is negative on both sides because it is simply not reality”, he maintains. The book, which summarizes this work and aims to decipher the true identity of the Cusco inhabitants, is the first publication by a Peruvian to bear the seal of the prestigious Editorial Rizzoli and has made its author the youngest in the firm.

After his first experience in Cusco, the young photographer moved to New York to study at the prestigious The School of Visual Arts in the city. It is there that his project begins to take shape and he hears for the first time the name of Richard Avedon, a lens artist who spent years portraying people from the American West using a white background to decontextualize them from the place they inhabited. , specifies Barreto about the differences that separate him from the man who inspired his work. With this idea in mind, he traveled to Cusco in 2018 and his stay lasted four months, during which time he lived -between three and four weeks- with the locals of the peasant communities of Kacllaraccay, in Maras; Whose Big, in Pisac; Tipón, on the outskirts of the city of Cusco; Choquecancha, in Lares; and San Isidro de Chicón, in Urubamba. “I tried to diversify the places in the region, from those that are 20 minutes from the city, like Tipón, to those that are further away, like Choquecancha, which is located more than four hours away. I did it to be able to take in all the nuances of life in Cusco,” he says. Once the desired connection was achieved, Barreto and his camera went into action with the aim of breaking stereotypes and showing people as they really are.

which emerges from the post. The complicated issue is dealt with intelligently and appeals to dialogue among the people of Cusco. Guided by the anthropologist Francesco D’Angelo, the portraits taken were shown to people from other communities to basically answer two questions: where do you think the person in the image is from? And what does he do, according to the clothes they wear? Excerpts from these prints enrich the photographic book and reveal complex social nuances. . In the conclusions, D’angelo rounds off the idea and talks about how these social hierarchies are intertwined to create what modern society in Cusco is today,” says Barreto.

Although at first, the author thought that he would end up publishing the book on his own, this is already done. In this regard, Barreto says that he is very excited about the arrival and acceptance of this first professional project. “I am excited to be able to help a little to understand the reality of Peru and remove the clichés that exist about our country. Publishing with Rizzoli makes it possible for this work to reach the world.”