Beyond the Silence, an Exhibition in Mexico

Beyond the Silence, a collaborative project organized by Magnum Photos in partnership with Odesa Photo Days Festival (Ukraine), with the support of the Open Society Foundations and Ukrainian Institute, seeks to create a dialogue between photographers from different countries to illuminate common experiences and challenges around the concepts of ongoing occupation and annexation, the impact of colonialism and censorship, and individual and collective choices to resist or adapt. Initiated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the initiative turns to photography as a medium that can convey authentic narratives and illustrate the impact of actions taken by authorities and individuals around the world.

The second exhibition opened its doors to the public on December 6, 2024 at the Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravoin in Oaxaca, Mexico, and explores the concept of censorship and propaganda. The exhibition is on view until January 26, 2025. 

“In an age of political manipulation, censorship, global economic interdependence, and the post-truth era, understanding reality has become essential for self-preservation,” writes curator Kateryna Radchenko. “ As political strategists create new myths and reinterpret reality to fight for public trust, we all have a responsibility to maintain the ability to independently analyze the constant flow of information.”

The exhibition presents three separate projects: one by Magnum photographer Rafał Milach and his work with  Oaxacan residents and their perceptions of issues such as security and war crimes, exploring how Mexico and Ukraine understand these concepts; another by Mexican photographer Daniel Orlando Lara Garcia with stories of cartel activity and the systemic violence that results from it; and finally Ukrainian photographer Sasha Krumaz’s series on his research into how photography can be used to manipulate public opinion.

Rafał Milach
Desperate Distortion Studio, Have you heard? and El Puente

In 2022, Milach began documenting the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the country’s civilians. Now, in the three projects conducted in Mexico, he explores the impact of the ongoing invasion in public consciousness, as well as the effects of Kremlin propaganda. Despite countries condemning the Russian invasion in 2022, the Mexican president at the time, Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, ruled out imposing economic sanctions on Russia in March of that year.

In Desperate Distortion Studio, Milach takes a video address made by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, and breaks it down into several thousand frames, to counter Obrador’s foreign policy. “Each frame is modified and subjected to artistic intervention,” the photographer says, adding that visual and sound artist Lukasz Dziedzic disrupted the soundtrack of the propaganda speech.

In Have You Heard? the photographer conducts a survey with 50 people from the Oaxaca region around the invasion of Ukraine.  “It spans not only two geographies, but also universal concepts of security and freedom and the war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine,” he explains.

In El Puente, Milach creates a selection of pictures of bridges in and around Oaxaca, Mexico, in a dialogue between a Ukrainian photographer based in Kyiv and a Polish photographer who traveled to Mexico and moved around without restrictions, capturing civilian architecture. “El Puente builds a metaphorical connection between these two remote geographies,” Milach says.

Daniel Orlando Lara Garcia
Territories of Imagination

Mexican photographer Daniel Orlando Lara Garcia’s series Territories of Imagination uses staged scenarios and other digital imagery to shed light on the realities of life under Mexico’s systemic violence, as well as the misinformation and rumors surrounding cartel activity in the country. 

“Based on both rumors and verified information, I began creating color images related to abduction and insecurity, with the objective to provide a form of mental relief by expressing the overwhelming influence of cyberspace on our collective consciousness through images of violence.” 

The “Highway of Death,” infamously known by Mexicans as one of the most dangerous roads in the state of Tamaulipas, is the site of frequent violent incidents caused by drug trafficking. By capturing images from a moving bus, the photographer reflects on the normalization of violence in the country. 

“Drug trafficking in Mexico has had a significant impact on the transformation of everyday language, the photographer says. This project is a reconstruction of the imaginary territory, the territory of semantics, a reconstruction of the geopolitical and social territory, a reconstruction of the territory of fear.”

Ukrainian photographer Sasha Kurmaz juxtaposes children’s drawings made under the influence of Russian military propaganda with Magnum photographers’ coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

“The interaction between the two forms of visual expression underlines the gap between innocence and brutality, propaganda and truth,” Kurmaz writes.  

His second work, The Truth Has Died. Will She Rise Again? documents a performance theatre  in Kyiv, and is based on one of Francisco Goya’s etchings from his series Los desastres de la guerra, 1810–1818 (in English, The Disasters of War).

“This reconstruction offers a contemporary viewpoint on events that occurred two centuries ago, highlighting the enduring nature of human behavior and its propensity for violence,” the photographer writes.  

Visit Beyond the Silence at the Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravoin in Oaxaca until January 26, 2025.  It will also be exhibited at the Rebollar Art Studio in Mexico City from December 13 to December 27, 2024. 

Three further exhibitions will take place in different locations around the world over the next few months. The next exhibition will open in January in Lagos, Nigeria featuring the work of Newsha Tavakolian.

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