Armendáriz Lorenzo

Lorenzo Armendáriz (Mexico, born 1961) remembers his grandfather’s large hands and rings. He was a tall, dark man, who lived in a lorry and was called “El Húngaro” (the Hungarian). He visited him as a child, but it was only as an adult that he learnt that he was not from Hungary, but part of the Mexican Roma community. Mexican Roma community. His photographic project, an inner search search for his personal traces and the portrait of the Roma culture, which in culture, which is little known in Latin America despite its centuries-old presence, emerged from this restlessness. Since 1995, Armendáriz has been photographic archive of the lives of some Roma families in Mexico. families in Mexico. There he has captured the lives and memories of the LUDAR with his camera. and memories of the LUDAR. This group, originating from the former Romania Romania came to Mexico at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and integrated into Mexican society by performing on the streets, trading street performances, trading and travelling cinema. They were nomadic families who travelled a large part of the Mexican territory in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Mexican territory in the 50s, 60s and 70s. This memory of travelling is what Lorenzo has photographed, where the journey is not an escape an escape, but a way of life to exist and affirm oneself. affirm itself. His black-and-white pictures immerse themselves in the life and history of Roma families and play with shadows, reflections and atmospheres and atmospheres to turn the photographs into vivid, contextualised contextualised documents that aim to break down stereotypes.