Says Marcela: Bazuko is a classic portraits series that aims to document the world of drug addicts in Medellin-Colombia. The word “bazuko” comes from English word “bazooka” and this drug is similar to crack and is extremely toxic. Most of this persons are pushed in their quotidian to steal, prostitute or murder, if necessary, to obtain their booty. I organised shootings in the most dangerous streets in downtown in Medellin and for that I used a theatrical background to highlight their singularity.
The city is a main carachter in the series and an important element that helped me to frame the “bazukeros” in the crazinnes of their daily life. For me they are like a contemporary version of s. XVI and s. XVII pirates, those who we’re involved in raids over the reality to demonstrate the lies of society, to parasitize the pillars of the order and live in liberty. Like pirates, the “bazukeros” live in a world in conflict with the authorities. They live a life in civil disobedience. In this series, the characters, beaten, in a society that their despises, show their degraded bodies. Their physique shows a particular aesthetic dimension. They almost all lost their teeth and body fat. I decided to register these characters in a series of classic portraits, because a wanted to show in a pictorical way the marginality of these characters, sometimes majestic.
I was inspired by the portraits of Théodore Géricault and by powerful portraits that Richard Avedon made in American West.
Marcela Barrios Hernandez – Colombian photographer. Graduates in journalism from the University of Antioquia in Colombia and graduated in political science in France, I also studied at the International Center of Photography in New York. Since 2007, I work as a documentary photographer and portraitist in Paris. I’m artist resident of the art atelier Le 6B in Saint Denis in Paris.
Website: hanslucas.com/mbarrios/photo
