Lurdes R. Basolí (Spain): Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets
Inge Morath Award Winner, 2010

Gallery offline – updating soon

Editor’s note: In 2010, in recognition of exceptional quality of submissions received, two applicants were selected as winners of the Inge Morath Award. Lurdes Basolí’s winning project will be featured in IM Magazine in September, and Claire Martin’s project in October 2010.

In Venezuela life is worth the price of a bullet. This photographic project proposes a black and white x-ray of an unending war. Urban violence in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, is every year killing thousands of young people. They are chiefly direct or collateral victims of a social and urban conflict where bullets and blood are mixed with drugs and culebras (problems among rival gangs). These are the tendencies of a mob which slip across favelas and streets of the most oil-poor neighborhoods in Venezuela (it is a paradox that in a country so rich in oil, its inhabitants live in harsh conditions). Death lives together with live every day, as figures corroborate: Venezuela has suffered the death of more than 120,000 people since Hugo Chavez came to power (1998); 21,500 only in Caracas. More figures: in Caracas there are 129 killings per each 100,000 inhabitants (1 in Madrid, 7 in Buenos Aires). This makes Caracas the most dangerous capital in America. Continue reading Lurdes R. Basolí: Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets →