Marcos Zegers

Chilean Photographer | Born: 1987

I am a Chilean photographer, with a background in architecture and with a strong interest in geopolitical, territorial and migration conflicts. My work focuses on long-term documentary projects in which I illustrate urgent situations through a careful and studied proposal.
My work has been exhibited in Chile (Animal, Ekho Gallery), and fairs in London, Paris, Shanghai and New York and I participated in photo festivals as PhotoEspa�a (Esp), Format (UK) and FIFV (Chile). Recently my documentary project was published on The New York Times which gave me the opportunity to start working as a freelancer for the same newspaper. I teach at the University Diego Portales in Chile where I currently live.

About Mining and Exodus in the Atacama Desert

This visual essay is the narrative of an endless journey through the desert and the Andes Highlands in Bolivia and Chile. A paused and deep journey through places full of memory. What appears to be photographs of elements randomly dispersed throughout the territory, when consciously grouped together, are transformed into a linear narrative linked to the extractive era. Like a map that is revealed in parts, a harsh story uncovers the relationship between mining activities and cultural displacements, all united under a common element in dispute, water.

Following the course of the extractive history of colonial Latin America, what was rubber in Iquitos, cane in the Caribbean, gold in Guanajuato or silver in Potosi, in Chile was the nitrate (saltpetre). For almost two centuries, the Atacama Desert has been a constant source of mineral resource extraction. The "Saltpetre Offices" have left the mark of an era of wealth and exploitation. Today the situation repeats itself as an exact cycle: what was nitrate, passed to copper, and today, it turns to lithium.

Right in the middle of this extractive history are the woman and the man who inhabited the territory. On the one hand, there is the Aymara woman who walks and grazes the cattle in the Andean mountain range. She has not seen the face of the mining company. However, they critically meet in the use of the same resource: water. The excessive water consumption by mining companies has dried the soil, making livestock and agriculture unviable. Consequently, the highlands man has been forced to go down to work in the city, where possibly, the job to which he aspires, is precisely in mining. This uncovers a vicious circle which is greatly enhanced by the government's lack of attention to these isolated areas.

The risk is profound. The desert has not been completely unravelled. It continues to have lots of minerals, and at the same time, it stalks a climate change that will not stop any time soon. In Chile the water is sold, the water rights belong to private. This situation has alarmed the inhabitants of this territory, amongst organizations and activists who wage real legal battles in the courts. This visual essay, far from addressing the issue on all its extents, seeks to contribute to the latent conversation about extractive practices and the current economic model in Chile. To bring back this apparently scenic desert to an urgent reality, promoting a reflection that contributes to the appreciation of rural territory and its culture.

Website:

marcoszegers.cl

Selected Work:

More Great Photographers To Discover

Stephanie Sinclair

Nationality: American

Born: 1973

Stephanie Sinclair, b.1973, is an American photojournalist known for gaining unique access to the most sensitive gender and human rights issues around the world. Sinclair graduated from the University of Florida with a BS in Journalism and an outside concentration in Fine Art Photography. After college, she went to work for the Chicago Tribune, which sent her to cover the start of the war in Iraq. She later moved to Iraq and then to Beirut, Lebanon, covering the region for (…)

All About Stephanie Sinclair

Lise Sarfati

Nationality: French

Born: 1958

Lise Sarfati has lived and worked in the United States since 2003. She has realized six important series of photographs there. They have been followed by exhibitions and publications. Each of her works makes clear the identity of an approach focused on the intensity of the rapport established with the person photographed, and of that person with the context. A vision in which the individual is environment, a map outlining a perilous cultural geography. The richness of (…)

All About Lise Sarfati

Bert Stern

Nationality: American

Born: 1929 - Died: 2013

Bertram Stern (October 3, 1929 � June 26, 2013) was a self-taught American commercial photographer. He was the son of Jewish immigrants and grew up in Brooklyn. His father worked as a children�s portrait photographer. After dropping out of high school at the age of 16, he gained a job in the mail room at Look magazine. He became art director at Mayfair magazine, where Stern learned how to develop film and make contact sheets, and started taking his own pictures. In 1951, (…)

All About Bert Stern

Alban L�cuyer

Nationality: French

Born: 1977

Born in Paris in 1977, Alban L�cuyer studied Journalism and Photography at the Lille Graduate School of Journalism (France). He mainly works as a photographer of architecture within public projects and for private companies (advertising campaigns, photographic missions). Whilst collaborating with various journals, he teaches the History of Photography and Image Analysis at the DMA in Nantes (France). His personal projects centre around the analysis of new forms of (…)

All About Alban L�cuyer

Don McCullin

Nationality: British

Born: 1935

Donald (Don) McCullin, FRPS CBE is an internationally known British photojournalist, particularly recognized for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished. McCullin's period of National Service in the RAF saw him posted to the Canal Zone during the 1956 Suez Crisis, where he worked as a photographer'(…)

All About Don McCullin

Gustavo Lacerda

Nationality: Brazilian

Born: 1970

Gustavo Lacerda is a brazilian artist, living in Sao Paulo. Born in Belo Horizonte, he grew up and studied journalism there. He become a photographer in the early nineties. In 2000 he moved to Sao Paulo and since then he has developed personal projects at the same time of his commissioned work. His work has been the winner of some awards and was published or exhibited in several countries like Brazil, China, Korea, Russian, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Slovenia, USA.

All About Gustavo Lacerda

Laurent Dequick

Nationality: French

Laurent Dequick is a professional architect in his forties. His photographic work has been influenced by architecture, since it is primarily focused on ideas surrounding the contemporary city and more specifically, urban sprawl. The photographer�s message is to accurately convey the impression of freneticism stemming from population density and activity in urban zones: �As you walk down the street, the lights, noises, traffic, hustle and bustle, and mix of smells are (…)

All About Laurent Dequick

Sean Perry

Nationality: American

Born: 1968

Sean Perry is a fine-art photographer living and working in New York City and Austin, Texas. His photographs and books center on architecture, space and light - expressing the ambiance felt within built environments. He is currently completing three series/books on New York City entitled Monolith, Gotham and Fotopolis, as well as exhibiting a recently completed body of work on the dreamscape of temporary environments, Fairgrounds.

Perry attended Berklee (…)

All About Sean Perry

Keith Carter

Nationality: American

Born: 1948

Keith Carter is an American photographer who is known for his dreamlike black and white photographs of the figure, animals, and meaningful objects. He began photographing new and unknown realities in his native East Texas environment. This setting, with heavy folklore, religious, and cultural motifs, inspired Carter to create some of his most iconic images. Since his start in Texas, his work continues to push imaginative realms in his travels within the United States and (…)

All About Keith Carter

Milton Rogovin

Nationality: American

Born: 1909 - Died: 2011

Milton Rogovin was born in New York City in 1909. He graduated from Columbia University in 1931 with a degree in optometry and a deep concern for the rights of the worker. He moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1938, where he established his own optometric practice in 1939. In 1942, he married Anne Snetsky. That same year, he purchased his first camera, and was inducted into the U.S. Army, where he served in England as an optometrist until 1945. Upon his discharge, he (…)

All About Milton Rogovin