There are 3,000 shoe shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz and El Alto suburbs each day in search of clients. They are from all ages and, in recent years, have become a social phenomenon in the Bolivian capital.
What characterizes this tribe is their use of ski masks to avoid being recognized by those around them. They confront the discrimination they face through these masks; in their neighborhoods, no one knows that they work as shoe shiners. At school, they hide this fact, and even their own families believe they have a different job when they head down to the center of the city from El Alto.
The mask is their strongest identity, making them invisible while at the same time uniting them. This collective anonymity makes them tougher when facing the rest of society and is their resistance against the exclusion they suffer because of their work.
For three years Federico Estol has been collaborating with sixty shoe shiners associated with the organization "Hormigón Armado.” We planned the scenes together during a series of graphic novel workshops, incorporating local elements of the urbanity of El Alto and producing photographic sessions with them as co-authors of an emancipation photo-essay to fight against social discrimination.
The project:
As a visual storyteller, I facilitate participatory processes using the Latin American ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ methodology to encourage engagement and define the real problems people feel. Then, we create a fictional emancipation with collages and graphic novels, developing a storyboard with the narrative decided by the group. Finally, we all work together like a cinema crew to co-produce a visual story that brings the message to life, through physical products and action in their territory.
We finance these activities through a circular economy philosophy based on the following concept: if we involve the community in the creation of the narrative, community must be recognised as co authors and receive 50% of the proceeds from any distribution of the images. Profits from the photography industry in the Global North, such as gallery sales, awards, exhibition fees and publications, will ensure the sustainability of actions in the Global South.
Social transformation not only means greater visibility for these 60 workers, it also provides a contribution to their daily income. We have produced many products to sell in the city center, such as photobooks, rap CDs, toys, calendars and postcards, and last year we opened a restaurant called Lustra Gourmet, run by women shoe-shiners to serve food for both workers and visitors of the area.
All of these products are funded by the circulation of the project within the photo industry ecosystem, as a direct contribution. Our final goal is to forget the stigma in the city, take off the mask and be respected as normal workers of the streets meanwhile providing improvements to their quality of life on a daily basis.
Ultimately, fictional constructed photography was far more effective to the group in transforming the discriminatory attitudes than documenting the surface of their own reality.
Social methodology:
Photobook
