Shine Heroes
There are 3000 shoe shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz and El Alto suburbs each day in search of clients. They are from all ages and in recent years have become a social phenomenon in the Bolivian capital. What characterizes this tribe is the use of ski masks so they will not be recognized by those around them. They confront the discrimination they face through these masks; in their neighbourhoods no one knows that they work as shoe shiners, at school they hidethis fact, and even their own families believe they have a different job when they head down to the center of the city from El Alto.
The mask is their strongest identity, what makes them invisible while at the same time unites them. This collective anonymity makes them tougher when facing the rest of society and is their resistance against the exclusion they suffer because they carry out this work. For three years I have been collaborating with sixty shoe shiners associated with theshoeshiners newspaper “Hormigón Armado”. We planned together the scenes during a series of graphic novels workshops depicting the new andean architecture of El Alto as its background. In this process, the shine heroes became both producers and protagonists of a photo essay to fight against a social stigma.
Today, this group makes its living primarily from selling the photobook and postcards of the project more than from being shoeshiners. This casts light on the new frontiers of the photographic medium, open possibilities of using participatory fiction to transform discrimination into a sign of struggle and survival that could ultimately help promote social integration.
Federico Estol
Federico Estol is an Uruguayan photographer and artivist. He currently works as a visual storyteller producing stories in Latin America, his long-term projects are focused on the relationship between cultural identity, inequality and social justice. His works are represented by East Wing Gallery Doha-Berlin.
His work has garnered awards including Grand Prix at Kyotographie (Japan), Emergentes award at Encontros da Imagem festival (Portugal), IILA-FOTOGRAFIA award (Italy), Critical Mass Photolucida award from the Oregon Center of Photography (USA), FELIFA best International photobook award (Argentina), Jury award at Lenzburg photofestival (Switzerland), Latin American photobook award from Montevideo Center of Photography (Uruguay) and Expert Award of the Lishui Photography Museum (China). His works are in various private and public collections such as the Institute of Latin American Studies IHEAL of the University Sorbonne in Paris, FOLA Latin American photo library in Buenos Aires, Museum of Avant-garde in Switzerland, the Orestiadi foundation in Italy, Lishui Photography Museum China and the National Photography Museum of Norway.
Exhibition presented in collaboration with the Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay.
This exhibition was presented in Building 1912 during the last Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay. It is now on display in the Museum.
