So how do you photograph the missing?
JP: For its absence. This was the central axis of the work. If you see the book for several chapters, but there are three essential points, the family of the missing, the survivors of dictatorships and places of torture and disappearance. So I photographed many spaces that were used as political prisons and torture centers, which are currently empty, with no one there, but are very sinister and cumbersome. After I photographed survivors and family, I told their stories pressed on tracing paper over the portraits of these people. It was also very important to focus on the historical photo files I could use, both public and private. They are images of 40 years ago, documentary evidence called "terror file" where the Colonel Contreras Sepúlveda invited the chief of police Francisco Brites, from Paraguay, for the inaugural meeting. After in the minutes appears the Operation Condor, with all that military lexicon, which explains in detail the plan and how it would be implemented.
It was a work that had to be black and white for the horror?
JP: No, the work was in black and white, because I love to shoot that way. I do not like to distract me, you have to focus in color, like the lightness of these tones, so use them in this work I do. It was a simple project, I used a single camcorder sublime, two lenses, one of 50 and another of 80 mm. It was a work with film of the 30s, all developed with the same developer and at the same temperature. I did not want to complicate technically, it was a complex project enough to still be making major changes.
After 40 years it was still difficult to get to the relatives of such persons and address this issue?
JP: No, that was relatively easy. Some people in these last 40 years have always been talking about this, because they have a missing child, or who is still in prison, causes to go on in search of answers, but others did not follow this way, they did not talk about the their missing at the beginning and are now in the process which is no less difficult. Often what I felt, in the long conversations of several hours, in some cases several days, such as of a couple of former political prisoners, during the morning interviewing the wife and the husband on the late aftenoons, is that it is an interesting process because the talks are not only the experience of dictatorship and repression, but what interests me a lot was to understand the marks left behind and that still remain, relations with the children, how to survive these times, how is live without knowing where this missing person is? What brand makes on people? Especially the mothers, going on a bus and suddenly run off because they glimpsed a figure that looks like their child. Dictatorships did not return their bodies to be able to do their mourning and burying them. Are very small marks, but which are very significant and show that interests to me.
So how did you shoot it? You mentioned the couple who you have talked for three days, they spoke about their experience and you photographed at the same time?
JP: I do not like to shoot people when they are talking. The interview is not my style, what I did was a formal portrait, posed, people are looking at me directly, there is a particular case that I photographed in Uruguay, a prisoner who I took back to prison, where she was imprisoned for twelve years, put it back in her cell and saw his look was completed different. There are several such cases in this book, are places that are directly related to the stories of these people. Therefore, has a strong symbolism for each course and bring them back to these places produces emotion, a whole environment that photographically works for me.
So how did you transform all this in a literary object?
JP: I decided to make this issue in three languages, Portuguese, English and Spanish. The hard part was choosing small variables I had to think about from the beginning, because it determines the price, printing and the type of object. I think that I could not make this too giant, a great work, but rather, it is intimate, almost light and reflecting the proximity of the images was something very important. This is a book to read, see and needed to be near the reader, is square and this allows you to create an object with images that were close to the spectator and do not need to be looking at them. So, how to incorporate the texts and all the stuff that I had? Did the idea of the texts in parchment paper, like one of those old albums, typical of families that we have at home, where this type of paper covers the images, I liked the texture, transparency and used it. This form allowed to print the whole book at once, with subtitles part in a catalog as you see incorporated into the order. No matter what language is the images are all the same and appear strictly the same way and time.
Why in three different languages?
JP: This book has about 40 pages of text which is quite and I do not like bilingual books because made him a sheaf. I read a publication, or in English, or Spanish, or Portuguese and not in two languages at the same time, this makes it a cleaner object in terms of editing. Then came the idea of the brochure to explain what were these images, the book's back cover, with the same sequence, to justify what you are seeing, it is a portable object and it made perfect sense to me. So if a person wants only views the images, if you only read the texts you can do it and if you want to look photo by photo accompanied by the caption you also can.
Something else is out, looking again at the "Condor"? That could lead to a new publication?
JP: Of all here includes all archival footage, altogether 176 photos I took over 2000, but my object editing was very good, it took me a year and a half to do mockups before going to the graphic was a test and my concern is that not something too heavy. The book has a total of 300 pages, the topic is not light and it was necessary to take into account how people would react to it and a book with too many photos it becomes very tiring, the main thing was to show the complexity without being too maçudo.
It was cathartic this process both for you and for the people who participated?
JP: For me it was not because I had nothing to do catharsis, for some people it was when I put in a less comfortable situations. I even think that for many of them was really cathartic, there are two people in the book (the second image at the top), Dona Maria and her daughter Sonia, she lost her husband and son were taken by the Chilean military in the coup 1973 both were shot too close to home, but they never knew very well how it happened. They were both at the beginning reluctant to speak, told me that already manifested on this for 30 years and nothing ever changed, were halted and after talking with them for a few hours, explain the purpose of my work they finally agreed to return to where it all happened. It was an area of two and a half hours drive from where they lived, so the next day we went to Chihuio where they had lived and they had been shot, we tried to go there and they had never returned there. It is now a place covered with pine woods and I felt and they also it had been very important to go back there, a revival of everything with less weight and more distance, to realize its importance, not only the personal pain, but at the same time represented the pain of thousands of Chileans who lost their lives. It was cathartic to lose that weight it was something that made sense. It was a privilege to see these processes closely and I still followed the evolution of these stories for a few years to see how they are now. So keep in touch with some of these people, see how they are progressing and it helps me despite being heavy topics, to see these cyclical follies that the world lives.
So how do you look at the world? With hope and horror at what human beings are capable of doing to each other?
JP: We already know that humans are able to make the best and the worst. I have either a look of hopelessness, nor sorrow, just look at World War II, not all men who participated in Nazism were beasts, were manipulated to this cause and the horror that was the Holocaust. In this case, as in the Portuguese dictatorship, as in all eyes, the conclusion I draw is that there are people in these situations commit extreme acts, such as Condor, but then there are others that are on the other side of this prism and my regard is attentive and alert. We must learn from past mistakes and abuses that were committed to avoid replicating them. It was easy, now that I'm in France, after the terrorist attacks, all go into the street and beat this or that person, then what we have learned all these years? Such events serve so we can learn and help to reflect on where we are and what we will be.
And what is the new project you are working on? Have closed the Condor cycle?
JP: More or less, it is difficult to close the loop, the story continues and I keep track of it, I do not say that arises something else, but the trials continues in Argentina, probably in Chile will start soon and this is something that interests me a lot, the universal justice process. Obviously I do other things, some are orders, I have often gone to Rio Janeiro, now with the Olympics at the door would go back there and see what has been done. I have several ideas, but one of the things I would like is to return to historical memory to shoot the Tarrafal, the concentration camp of several Portuguese political prisoners, after African and look at this space. This theme of colonial war implies a huge logistics and sincerely I want to talk to the Portuguese veterans, from the Guinea, Angolans and Mozambicans to this need means that I have, which is not to say that the future is not possible.
