PEDRO FARIAS-NARDI: Let Me Introduce You at Photolucida

"Let me introduce you to my deceased Mother"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"Let me introduce you to my daughter and her husband"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"Let me introduce you to my Mother"

Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

"This series of portraits are the result of the lingering power of the image in bringing memories to life.  I was working for an NGO (TU, MUJER) in Los Mina, Santo Domingo Este, Dominican Republic; devising a program to help the recipients of remittance to understanding their hard work overseas, thus to avoid that it is wasted in banal issues.  While visiting houses for people to talk to them, they always brought a picture of the relative that had left the country."

"For the series I placed the person holding the picture on front of a blue curtain, to resemblance a studio, but included the surroundings as a metaphor, allegory, of what is left behind, sometimes, what had been acquired from the money send: furniture, a store, emptiness –like the image of a woman holding a picture of her deceased mother (Let me introduce you to my mother…).  She was denied a visa for the funeral, and she had not the resources to bring the body back home, thus a lot of sadness, among the thins she mentioned was “who will tend to her grave there?”  Or the young girl, that can hardly hold the picture, and hardly knows her mother...." read more here

"Let me introduce you to my wife"

"A picture of myself, holding a picture of my wife; she is overseas continuing her studies in surgery" Self-Portrait © Pedro Farias-Nardi

Pedro Farias-Nardi was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1957 and started photography at the early age of seven. Focusing on long-term photographic projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Farias-Nardi has extensively documented the lives of economically and socially marginal people. He holds degrees in anthropology from the City University of New York and the University of Florida, Gainesville, and studied photography and visual anthropology at the International Center for Photography, the University of Southern California, and with photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil. He currently lives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We met at Photolucida's 2015 Portfolio Review. His work is posted on FotoVisura's Guild.

From the series El Otro
Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

From the series El Otro
Photograph © Pedro Farias-Nardi

Pedro Farias-Nardi’s El Otro is a series of portraits of undocumented Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. In collaboration with the Immigration Department, the portraits were taken when the Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Service (JRMS) started an ID campaign.

“My reason for these re-presentations is to call attention to the plight of these workers who are ignored by the Dominican population but are an important segment of our economy. I cooperated with the JRMS for almost two years, documenting the life of the migrants in the region.”

Check out Farias-Nardi's Otro series at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland