3rd Place winner
Happiness
DESCRIPTION
It was October when we arrived to a small village in Togo, near the border with Ghana called Takpamba, to pass the medical consultation with the doctors of our NGO OASIS.It was a very small settlement. Away from everything. During the rainy season that becomes it farther by floods that multiply the diseases in those patients who had been arrived to the improvised medical consultation under the shade of a large mango tree. In the middle of nowhere…
By mid-afternoon, after spending all the day coexisting with illnesses, I decided to go out and breathe some fresh air trying to escape from suffering that we had been watching all day in the faces of that sick people.
And there it was. A group of children. The sons, nephews and grandchildren of our patients... playing happily. Running behind those old motorcycle wheels in that red dirty track full of dust. Smiles and more smiles. Noisy joy. Pure happiness...
There are times when the line between suffering and happiness is so small and fuzzy that scares...
Africa.
Heat, sun and illness… All I see is bodies roaming the Savannah in search of food, shelter and survival…
Ten years have passed and thousands of patients. The countless wounded and disabled resemble beasts. Deathly African pathologies. Hours and hours of work in the operating room. Mutual suffering both alien and heartfelt fill the harsh, rocky and inhospitable plains.
Sands. Red. Covered in blood. Thick. Sweet and red.
Club feet, deformed, twisted and burned. Rotting legs and exposed bones. Putrid air fills my lungs. Everyone, everywhere crippled and maimed.
Whole regiments. Wounded and disabled. Why would I come back? To Africa? To Togo? You ask absurd questions. I know. You know and He knows.
Oasis… Full of joy… Hidden smiles… Pretty light…. Happiness…
AUTHOR
Since the mid-90s he has always been involved with the photographic medium: Founds and chairs “Nostromo” Photographers Association (Spain). Professor (over fifteen years) of photography: University of Cantabria (Spain), American University UAM (Nicaragua), Central American University UCA (Nicaragua), Caribbean University URACCAN (Nicaragua), Cantabrian Government and Santander City Hall (Spain)… He organizes and directs the I Photography Festival of Santander. Organizes and leads the project “Los Castros 65” Photo Showroom. He writes about photography in different publications. He was Publisher and CEO in “Xplorer” Magazine (Nicaragua). He has been Free-lance photographer for several International News Agencies. General Manager Xtreme Photo WS (Burkina Faso, Africa). Organizes and Directs the Solidarity Photography Days “Fotografía un Mundo Mejor” (Murcia, Spain)……In 2003 he founds, and since then he presides, the NGO OASIS (www.ongoasis.org) which develops every year medical projects in some of the most depressed areas of the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, having extensive experience working in Africa.
He has exhibited (more than eighty exhibitions) his work in Galleries and Museums: Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid, Spain), Museum of Fine Arts (Santander, Spain), BBK Foundation (Bilbao, Spain), Canal de Isabel II Space Gallery (Madrid, Spain), Espai de la Fotografía (Valencia, Spain), Obra Social y Cultural de Caja Duero (Cáceres, Spain), Central Library (England), ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair (Spain), Ruben Dario´s National Theatre (Nicaragua), MAPFRE Foundation, ONCE Foundation, Museum of Antioquia (Colombia), Fontainebleau Palace (China), University of Hidalgo (México), Osnabrück’s Cultural History Museum (Germany), Puertas de Castilla (Murcia), Burj Khalifa Park (Dubai), Sakharov Center (Moscow), Rivne Regional Museum (Ukraine), Salt Galata & Galata Fotoğrafhanesi (Istanbul, Turkey), Odessa Photo Days (Ukraine), Batumi Photo Days (Georgia), State Art Gallery (Madhapur, India), Palazzo Pubblico (Siena, Italia), Ostroh Academy (Ukraine), Hysan Place (Hong Kong)...
