Community Show Opening Weekend at Photoville 2024

This series of aerial portraits celebrates sisterhood, solidarity, and connection among aquatic communities in Perú, Chile, and the United States. This draws on two bodies of work, Women of the Water, where Sotelo invited a hundred women to swim in the sea and be part of a collective, large-scale installation with their bodies and the ocean waters to reclaim the territory and their bodies. The images serve as visual records of feminine resistance and unity. The second series, Rainbows, shows women as the embodiment of the rainbow, on the sea and the land, expressing color, freedom, unity, and hope for better times.

Ana Elisa Sotelo — @anaelisasotelov

Palomas tells the story of a community of transgender women living lives of vulnerability as they seek autonomy in São Paulo, Brazil. Paloma is the name of one of these women who told their stories about violence, prostitution, helplessness, imprisonment, dreams, and courage.

Dan Agostini — @dn_agostini

This personal project began in the Indigenous community of Zhuracpamba in Ecuador’s Andeas mountain range and expanded to include the indigenous peoples of Saraguro, Paltas, and Cañar. Here these communities continue to celebrate the agricultural festivals that mark the Andean calendar, starting with the four equinoxes: Pawcar Raymi, or the festival of flowering, Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun, Kapac Raymi, or the festival of new life, and Kuya Raymi, the festival of fertility. The younger generations of the Indigenous peoples here have taken it upon themselves to revive and preserve the ancestral rituals and ceremonies. Their quest for knowledge and spiritual wisdom involves the use of sacred plants such as aguacolla, ayahuasca, tobacco, coca leaf, sage, mushrooms, and others. Psychoactive drinks are administered by taitas, or shamans, who serve as spiritual guides and are integral to the preservation of the cultural heritage and the practice of traditional medicine for the well-being of the spirit and body.

David Diaz Arcos — @diaz.arcos

This project delves into the intersection of photojournalism and documentary, focusing on human mobility in Mexico. It portrays migrants' emotional journey through global sociopolitical barriers, highlighting the limbo between geographical territory and the body. Inspired by 17th-century art, it narrates the resilience of those fleeing marginalization, climate change, and violence, aiming to reveal human stories through light and moments.

Felix Marquez — @felyxmarquez

Discrimination and social inequality forced many mestizo families, like Alarcón’s, to abandon their homes, this new generation of women has decided not to leave and rather to stay in their communities leading the defense of their land and culture. She writes, “Their relationship with their territory is their relationship with themselves, keeping the memory of life in their bodies and weaving a living map with water, flowers, and stones. Their bodies, our bodies, are geographies in resistance.”

Johis Alarcón — @johis.alarcon

Starting in 2019 and finishing in 2023, Kohli’s goal with thi series was to show the level of importance of diversity, not only limited to color but also including gender, sexuality, religion, background, etc. “It's not limited to the team in front of the camera,” he says, “but also the people behind the camera. When you bring a group of talents together, regardless of where they come from, etc, the result will and can be excellent and beyond.”

Kunal Kohli — @kunalsnarrative

Yazar is a Kurdish photographer from Turkey and this is my long-term photo story. In Shadow of Kurdistan, the photographer shows the Kurdistan geography, the political problems, and the culture of Kurds across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. He seeks to bring all Kurds on a photo story together without borders between us.

Murat Yazar — @muratyazar_photographer

Ordinary Grief considers what it means to forget and what it means to try to remember. After 25 years, Azadi returned to Iran to reclaim her identity and history, to reconcile despair with joy. Stradling the line between East/West and insider/outsider, her experiences of Iran are difficult, unromantic, and fragile. SHe found her images foreground ordinary Iranians creating new futures for themselves, depicting moments of serenity, celebration, and ritual in the shadow of perpetual grief. They mark the passage of time as they document physical, emotional, and political limbo: they question what it means to long and to belong.

Parisa Azadi — @parisa_images

This project began in 2021 while Harboure was working in the Antarctic Peninsula on board an expedition vessel as a photographer and guide. She entered the industry amidst an unprecedented rise of tourism to Antarctica (100,000 visitors a year). Through this project, she is navigating questions about the relationship we have with this unique environment, and how tourism impacts and interconnects with elements of exploration, scientific research, and climate change. What does the continent represent for us today? What is our “built collective constructed image” of Antarctica? Could traveling to Antarctica have a good personal impact on the advocacy/action for a healthier climate? What is involved in the attractiveness of the place? Is there an element of inspirational achievement in the experience of getting close to the golden heroic era of exploration and exploitation in the continent? And what parallels exist between our space race and the touring the unknown of Antarctica?

Pia Harboure — @mpih

This series offers an intimate exploration of fashion and womanhood in the ancient Moorish Empire, Africans who conquered and civilized Europe, ruling for nearly 800 years. With meticulous attention to detail that brings to life the lavish textiles and regal aesthetic defining Moorish women's appearance, Godbody's tableaux serve as a portal into this rich cultural heritage.

Taiye Godbody — @taiyegodbody