Decolonizing the camera in practice
Guatemalan visual artist Ixmucané Aguilar joins Wolfgang Kaleck, ECCHR general secretary, to discuss her documentary photography practice exploring the enduring effects of German colonialism in Namibia and the genocide against the Herero and Nama. The conversation addresses the fragility of photography as a medium, the risk the photographer runs of imposing their values upon their subject, the importance of collective evidence and recognizing the many nuances of truth.
Decolonizing the camera in practice
Biographies
Artist
Ixmucané Aquilar
Ixmucané Aguilar (1983) is a Berlin-based visual artist/designer who graduated from Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin - in the class of Prof. Tristan Pranyko. She works with documentary photography, which she combines with research and conversations, guided by an interest in looking for truth and human perspectives. Ixmucané often engages with communities of people sharing a reality affected by political and historical layers. In this sense her work turns text and images into artistic photo-documentaries as fragments of human reality.
ECCHR General Secretary
Wolfgang Kaleck
Wolfgang Kaleck founded the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights with other internationally renowned lawyers in Berlin in 2007. As a lawyer, he represents whistleblower Edward Snowden, among others. Kaleck has also published numerous books.