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), whom he visited as a child, but only as an adult did he learn that he was not from Hungary, but part of the Mexican Roma community. His photographic project, an inner search for his personal traces and a portrait of Roma culture, which is little known in Latin America despite its centuries-old presence, was born out of this restlessness.
Since 1995, Armendáriz has been building up a photographic archive of the lives of several Roma families in Mexico. There he has captured the lives and memories of the LUDAR with his camera. This group, originating from the former Romania, came to Mexico at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and integrated themselves into Mexican society by appearing on the streets, trading and running travelling cinemas. It was nomadic families who travelled a large part of the Mexican territory in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
This memory of wandering is what Lorenzo has photographed, where the journey is not an escape, but a way of life in order to exist and affirm oneself. His black and white images delve into the lives and histories of Roma families, playing with shadows, reflections and atmospheres to make the photographs vivid, contextualised documents that aim to break down stereotypes.

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