Background information
"The phozo volume 'People of the Mud' by Luis Alberto RODRIGUEZ contains a powerful new series by Berlin-based artist Luis Alberto RODRIGUEZ, made collaboratively amongst the communities of County Wexford in Ireland, where ancient tradition and modern life rub shoulders daily. With a background in professional dance, the work by the US-Dominican photographer pays tribute to the metaphorical weight of centuries of physical labour behind cultivating the landscape and maintaining cultural heritage. Images of scarred limbs and hands, weathered faces and choreographed bodies appear as a cartography of this labour, reflecting how culture both shapes and is shaped by individuals. Elsewhere, we see the exaggerated glamour of modern female Irish dancers taken out of the glitzy ballrooms and into the fields, creating a rupture across time and space.
Content
The black-and-white images in the photo volume 'People of the Mud' by Luis Alberto RODRIGUEZ are showing how he worked with players to reform these gestures: creating sculptures out of bodies, directing and literally layering players upon one another. At the outset of his project, the photographer wanted to create a large family photograph, an idea that was quickly surpassed by other strands of enquiry. However, with a step backwards we can see 'People of the Mud' as just that – a collective community portrait of all the different elements that construct modern, rural Irish identities. Just like any family portrait, it is at times dysfunctional and contradictory; it gathers all the ruptures and continuities between the past and present in modern Ireland, while being held in a landscape and moment in time. This moment is both still – posed and paused – and in perpetual motion, looking towards the future." (slightly adapted text, for the original text: © Loose Joints, 2020)
About American-dominican photographer, Luis Alberto RODRIGUEZ
Photo books by Luis Alberto RODRIGUEZ
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Tim Walker, Orla Fitzpatrick
- Format
- Embossed HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 23 x 27,5 cm., 114 pp., 63 tritone b/w ills., text language: English