Ana María Arévalo Gosen, Spain
Ana María Arévalo Gosen was born 1988 in Caracas, Venezuela, started a university course in politics in France in 2009, added a course in photography, worked in Germany as a photographer from 2014. When her husband fell ill, she also became an activist in education on cancer while continuing to work mainly on themes related to women. International media and exhibitions publish and show the work of Ana, who currently lives in Bilbao.
Music as a prospect of healing, as a centre of power, as a path into community and a liberation from violence: Ana Maria Arévalo Gosen’s photo report plays out against the background of big crises in the land of her birth, Venezuela. A socio-economic and political crisis, intensified by the covid pandemic with its well-known consequences, especially for children and young people, in the countries of the global South.
This is about a project to rescue young people from a descent into a life of drugs and crime. By integrating them into a youth orchestra. An initiative of the Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho under Elisa Vegas, the only female conductor of Venezolanian symphony orchestra. Together with Grammy-nominated singer Horacio Blanco.
Members of the professional ensemble teamed up with street kids for a series of arrangements. They played classics from the repertoire of the well-known ska band Desorden Público. Recordings were made in various living quarters during lockdown, on mobiles, mixed later. Eventually there were also two public concerts in the streets.
The photographer calls the project “a gift to hope”. (Text by Peter-Matthias Gaede)