Pictures in Dispute: Documentary photography in Sandinista Nicaragua

Abstract

The need for political participation felt in the aftermath of the Cuban revolution, and the widespread mobilization of photography to political ends during this period intersected with postmodern theory in a global arena. While US-based critiques of the documentary genre have been duly analyzed in the relevant literature, related conversations taking place in Latin America have only been marginally explored. This article posits that so-called postmodern discourses in fact created the basis for a horizontal, transnational and multi-centered, rather than vertical (North‒South) dynamic between these photographic communities. Through their commitment to politics, and to avant-garde aesthetics, documentary photographers performed gestures of cultural and visual appropriation, fitting their itinerant context. This article analyzes the work of Claudia Gordillo, taking as a case study Nicaragua during the 1980s.