CHOLETS
Photo exhibition by Yuri Segalerba
Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/552965441801555/
Vernissage: 27 September, 18:30
Exhibition: from 28 September till 12 October 2018
BOTSCHAFT DES PLURINATIONALEN STAATES BOLIVIEN
Wichmannstraße 6, 10787 Berlin
Admission is free
In the Andean Plateau, at over 4000 meters high, rises El Alto, satellite city of La Paz, founded in 1985. Today it counts almost one million of inhabitants and it's the second most populated city in Bolivia after Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
The Aymara natives, come from the countryside, make up about 75% of the population and are now part of the new middle class.
A growing economy and a renewed sense of indigenous pride has led to the rise of a new style of architecture which introduced some color in the city of El Alto, mostly characterized by a strong use of exposed brick.
These extravagant and colorful Nuevo Andino (New Andean) style buildings are called Cholet, a mix between the words “chalet” and “cholo”-a dismissive racial epithet that it is used in some Latin American countries to identify the indigenous population-
The authorship of this new style can be entrusted to the self-taught architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre and in his wake other members of the nascent Aymara bourgeoisie started to build their houses inspired by the colors and forms of indigenous folklore.
The Cholets have a fixed structure: on the first floor there is a commercial activity -butcher's shop, ironmongery's store, bazaar ..-, at the second there is the party hall, to the third apartments that the owners rent to amortize the cost of the building, and on the top floor the Cholet proper, the home of the owners.
These buildings in El Alto became the representation of economical success.
During a trip to Bolivia, Yuri Segalerba retraced the streets of El Alto to discover these buildings and photographing them focusing on the social and architectural contrast they represent, without ignoring the uniqueness of the geometry and chromaticity typical of this style.
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Yuri Segalerba, genoves transferred in Berlin, dragged from his passion for abandoned industrial areas, has been working in photography since 2009.
The interest in architecture, industrial archeology, sociology and cultural minorities give him inspiration to choose the objectives of his trips, during which he ventures to the most hidden places on the planet documenting different social situations.
His photos are characterized by symmetries, geometric shapes and central perspectives that tend to flatten the subject, giving a two-dimensional sensation of it.
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