Congratulations to UGFTV Alum Daniela Rivera Antara ('18) who presents her first solo exhibition with UNHCR, a humanitarian assistance institution run by the UN and the Ombudsman's Office, on the situation of Venezuelan migrant and refugee women in Peru.
Daniela Rivera Antara, shows in this exhibition sensory and emotional images that reflect the internal and overwhelmed world of women who were forced to migrate to the city of Lima because of the humanitarian crisis in their native country.
The exhibition brings together 20 images that movingly show the message and work that UNHCR develops in the region, being the first exhibition of this nature carried out by the UN agency for refugees in Peru, where the series of iconographic investigations is presented made by Rivera Antara during the years 2020 and 2021.
“I developed these photos after a year of seeking to understand the situation of migrant women within Peru and in Latin America. I wanted to make images that show these women as human, worthy of a new life, unlike the news that was appearing in the local press at the time.”
“I returned to Lima after 3 years and when I heard on the street the way they talked about migrant women, I decided that I could find a different angle, with more empathy and closeness towards the complexity of feeling expelled from their own country. I was concerned about the percentage of informality in which most of them lived and still do. This opened me up to understanding that if I could communicate the fact that these women deserve to live as full citizens, empowered to live and develop professionally, with livelihood opportunities and education and with the security of having a life far from the violence from which they escaped then, could contribute to something good towards our country and towards the region” indicated the presenter.
The intimate and poetic approach that Rivera Antara discovered through this research brings together moments between mothers and children, moments of loneliness, reflection and melancholy. Universal feelings that can be easily identified in one's life during periods of uncertainty. Rivera Antara managed to offer an artistic approach to highlight the beauty of these women and thus transcend the status of migrant or refugee.
It was published by National Geographic, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and has been part of international group shows with Rotterdam Photo Festival, The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan and Head On Foundation in Sydney, Australia. The work won an Emerging Artist Grant from the Lucie Foundation and was a finalist for the PHMuseum Women Photographers Grant, IWPA Awards, among others.
“The stories are hard and moving, researching them and carrying out the show involved me emotionally and physically. I discovered that it was not necessary to show violence and explicit pain to communicate the complexity that exists in women when we feel exposed and vulnerable. What I highlight and would like to communicate to everyone, is the spirit of survival and the search for a better life that they are creating for themselves. These women are warriors and powerful and that is how I would like them to be seen.”
Volver A Ser Una by Daniela Rivera Antara is a traveling exhibition with UNHCR and can be seen from February 17 - March 18 at the Ombudsman's Office in Cercado de Lima. Open from Monday to Saturday from 9.00 - 15.00. Free entry.
For more information - https://www.rivera-antara.com/