The Belongings of the Air

Over the past 15 years, Musuk Nolte has traveled to the Peruvian Amazon on several occasions. Driven by a commitment to the lives of the indigenous communities inhabiting the region, he has been working on a long-term documentary project that follows their struggles. The Belongings of the Air is a photographic series that forms part of this project and depicts the artist's experience with ayahuasca during his time with the Shawi indigenous community in the Paranapura river basin. Guided by Julio, a local shaman, and the omnipresent voice of his mother, Nolte embarks on an inner journey where, in his words, he is able to dream with his eyes open, exist in another dimension and see into the unknown.

 

The artist's visual exploration focuses on how the unrepresentable can be made visible and how a spiritual experience can be linked to a social interest in light of his role as a disseminator and observer of indigenous thought. This reflection takes the form of a dialogue between documentary and auteur film in which the artist's work as a photographer is reformulated. In this way, the record of the dismantling of an indigenous territory through documentary images is supplemented by an experimental representation of the urgent need to preserve the intangible heritage of indigenous peoples. The ayahuasca experience evokes the spirit of resistance to globalization and its neoliberal policies.

 

Like an atlas interconnected by visions, this project draws us into the synesthetic realm of photography and prompts us to reflect on the symbolic place of the subject in the world. Echoing the indigenous cosmovision, the artist's images seek to convey the importance of situating the individual as part of a whole, marking a clear contrast with Western thinking that has permeated social dynamics in Latin America. Nolte provokes a confrontation with the present, in which different visions of the world jostle for legitimacy and the possibility of coexisting alongside one another.

 

Artist presented by Vist Projects, Medellin, Colombia

 

 

Musuk Nolte is a Mexican-Peruvian photographer and editor whose work spans both documentary and artistic photography, addressing social, political, and environmental issues. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including those from World Press Photo, the Magnum Foundation, the Pulitzer Center, FONCA, and the Bertha Foundation, among others. Nolte is currently a National Geographic Society Explorer and a recipient of the Vital Impacts grant. He has exhibited widely and published eight books, including his latest, Las pertenencias del aire, which focuses on his work in the Peruvian Amazon. Since 2013, Musuk has been the co-founder and editor of KWY Ediciones, an independent publishing project dedicated to Latin American photography. 

 

Born 1991 in Mexico City, Mexico.
Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico.

 

An independent curator, his research reflects on the relationship between memory and desire. He is curator of Centro de la Imagen (Mexico) from 2018 to 2021. Among his main projects are Pirates on the Boulevard. Agustín Martínez Castro (Centro de la Imagen, 2018), The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Nan Goldin (Centro de la Imagen, 2019), Bewitched Clothing (Outsiderland, Amsterdam, 2022) and Positive Negative. Cultural Reactions against AIDS in Mexico (Centro de la Imagen, 2022). In 2019, he founds the Contemporary Images Platform for Centro de la Imagen, a website dedicated to promoting new talents in Mexican photography. He is director of Drama, an independent space dedicated to Mexican queer photography.