KOEN WESSING IN CONVERSATION WITH KEES HIN
Director: Kees Hin | Camera: Jan Wouter van Reijen | Editor: Thomas Vroege | Soundmix: Wart Wamsteker
Koen Wessing’s Indelible Images is a multi-platform project that shows Koen Wessing’s coverage of the 1973 military coup in Chile and more of his Latin American work from the 1970s. The project is a collaboration between Dutch photographer Koen Wessing, filmmaker Kees Hin and curator/designer Jeroen de Vries.
The first show was produced by Paradox for the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM) in Santiago de Chile.
The project included an exhibition at the GAM from March 8 to April 30, 2011, and the donation of selected prints of Wessing’s photographs from 1973 to the archive of theUniversidad Diego Portales for scientific and educational purposes. Centro Gabriela Mistral (GAM) was a former cultural center during the Allende administration that was occupied by the troops after the military coup and used as headquarters for the military regime. In September 2010 the cultural center was reopened as high profile location in the center of Santiago with the agenda of featuring a broad range of cultural events covering all arts from dance performances, to music, theater and exhibitions.
The exhibition consists of 3 major parts. The first part is a three-screen projection showing the events around the military coup in 1973 as an audiovisual arrangement on a 14×3.5 meter screen. This audiovisual composition is accompanied by the second part – a film produced by Kees Hin, one of the Netherlands most internationally renowned documentary filmmakers. The film consists of an interview with Koen Wessing filmed in 2010 shortly before his death. In this interview he speaks about the book and his work that was produced during the time of the military coup. The interview has not been shown before this exhibition and is one of the rare occasions that Koen Wessing actually speaks about his own work.
The last part of the exhibition is a collection of prints composed from Wessing’s most important Latin American work. After the military coup in Chile his first visit to Nicaragua was in 1978 to photograph the family of Somoza, whose regime started to crumble at the time. Afterwards he went back to Nicaragua several times, picturing its change and devastation.
The photographs from El Salvador show the horrific events during the funeral of archbishop Oscar Romero. Tens of thousands of mourners who had gathered for Romero’s funeral mass in front of the cathedral in San Salvador eventually fleeing in terror as army gunners on the rooftops around the square opened fire.
This selection forms a coherent whole, depicting Latin America from a period of about 12 years.
The exhibition is curated and designed by Jeroen de Vries who mostly directs his attention to embedding photography and film in new forms of representation. De Vries curated and designed the only retrospective exhibition about Koen Wessings work.
The documentary about the exhibition Koen Wessing: Indelible Images at GAM has been filmed and edited by Tinus Kramer.
Koen Wessing: Indellible Images is a production of Paradox, Edam
