Category: Lima 2010

I have held off posting until the work was up on the 591 website, a site from Stockholm. I will attach a link here and you can look at it all at once.

http://www.591photography.com/2010/11/591-permanent-exhibition-liese-ricketts.html

Each day I will add a new photo from my series, Moving Spectacles, so you can see the result of those days in Perú which you may have followed along with me.

The parade of the mental patients through the Larco Herrera Insane Asylum was truly a joyous experience. The love and care the patients receive from the nurses and volunteers is very remarkable. The patients I photographed were so excited to be all dressed up in outfits for the parade.

The buildings are separated according to  the disability of the patient: I was in Block 8, the acute schizophrenic wing. There were several people I recognized from the past year and they seemed to remember me as well.

As I had permission to shoot, I took as many rolls as I could in four hours, both inside and outside the ward. I shot 12 rolls with my Rolleiflex and turned in the film right afterwards to Profesa, my photo store.

I shot a bit with the digital camera but I hate it so much, it really is unpleasant to use.

What impressed me the most was that, despite the difficulties that are endemic to any institution for the mentally ill, the warmth and love mutually expressed by the staff and the patients toward each other was beautiful indeed. So many photos exist of patients in similar institutions where neglect and abuse exist, that it was pure joy to witness something very different today.

Here are a few of the digital shots: just so you can feel a bit of what I felt.

Tomorrow I am off at 8am to the Insane Asylum in Lima. It is a very old complex of buildings from the republican era in Lima, named Larco Herrera.

I am very excited as I sent a ‘solicitud’ or petition to photograph last year and it was granted just after I left Peru. They saved me the signed form and tomorrow I can shoot the Patriot Days of Peru. This is on the 28th of July, Peru’s independence day, like our 4th of July. Peruvians are very proud of their country, as they should be, and being half Peruvian myself, I feel the pride as well.

Tomorrow all the asylum inmates will dress up and form a parade which will run throughout the asylum buildings. I am delighted to be able to show the lighter and happier side of life which is very hard, often very painful as well. To be insane is a terrible thing but I hope to see some moments of joy and shared pride.

I will post a digital image tomorrow but I will be shooting mainly B&W on film so no way to post those.

Very productive and totally exhausting day. We drove to La Molina to connect with a clown in a wheel chair whom I had met last week. I was very happy to find him and he was as generous and kind as could be.

Then we headed to the market in Callao, perhaps one of the riskiest places, security-wise, that I have photographed on this trip. There are lots of known pickpockets and gangs there, so my two bodyguards were stressed by the end of the afternoon. They had my back the whole time I photographed a crowd with three performers, itinerant comics. The humor was vulgar and funny.

After 8 hours, 9 rolls. Thirsty and full of dust, I got back home and fell into two-hour nap. Great.

Today was a day to shoot the “malabaristas,” or street gymnasts, I would call them, who perform gymnastic feats at the intersections.

Found a great group of young men, ages 12-35. The oldest was the leader and told the others what to do, how to do it, and ran the show. Two Emergency Police sat in their car watching. When I laid down on the ground to photograph their jumps, there was a mini crowd around me. I think I could have charged a fee. Anyway, the oldest guy was like a father figure to the younger ones; they followed his orders precisely and with total respect. The youngest of all, a boy of about 12  kept putting his arms affectionately around the oldest guy, in a gesture of love and submission. It would be interesting to know more about that relationship.

When I got up from the ground there were three transvestites behind me and we chatted briefly about what good athletes the boys were.

Then the oldest guy let me shoot him somersaulting over the police car with them in it. How fun was that!

Good day except I lost my cell phone. The gods can be cruel and make you pay for any joy.

Off we went to find street acrobats. Near the center of the city, we found four young acrobats who performed during the red light at the intersection. They did individual jumps and group acrobatics. The irony was that the traffic police stood right behind them and let them work, as if they were invisible.

This morning I am reviewing contact sheets and looking for the missing pieces. I have some ideas for the next week.

My friend, Graciela, will call this afternoon so I can make contact with the director of the Street Comics Guild.

I also want to find the wandering clowns. Yesterday I met a clown and we agreed that Wednesday I will look for him to take pictures.

The clowns or comics are not part of the family circuses but are free agents hired by the circuses to come and perform at night. The comics are a real attraction at the small circus as the audience loves the bawdy humor, the circus owners tell me.

An amazing discovery yesterday. As I was searching for a title, like a mother-to-be searches for a name for her baby, I discovered the source of my fascination with the poor, itinerant circus.

I saw a reference to La Strada by Fellini and I instantly recognized the deep connection to it. It has always been my favorite film but it touched a point within me so deeply that I have always been drawn to the moving spectacle. And, that is the name I choose.

Moving Spectacles

Los Espectaculos que (con)Mueven

The double entendre of both words, along with the suggestion of “la strada,” being on the road.

Today I fought all morning with a brand new and VERY crappy small dye sub Canon printer that I brought with me. My intention was to print the digital pix I take afterward and give them as a gift to my photo subjects. The printer is totally useless.

I will haul it back and get my $$$ back. Always something.

Tonight my cousin and I are going to a photo opening at the Ojo Ajeno en Lima, a fine photo institute.

spectacle |ˈspektəkəl|
noun
a visually striking performance or display : the acrobatic feats make a good spectacle | the show is pure spectacle.
• an event or scene regarded in terms of its visual impact : the spectacle of a city’s mass grief.
PHRASES
make a spectacle of oneself draw attention to oneself by behaving in a ridiculous way in public.
ORIGIN Middle English : via Old French from Latin spectaculum ‘public show,’ from spectare, frequentative of specere ‘to look.’
spectacles |ˈspektəkəlz| |ˈspɛktəkəlz| |ˈspɛktək(ə)lz|
plural noun
another term for glasses .