Admin – Page 2 – SEBASTIÁN ASTORGA

September 2, 2018November 16, 2021

Masks of Hopes

This is a chapter from the long-term project: Masks.

“The correct side of the history is not either a straight line or a single road; it is a
cluster of intersections, detours and confused routes.”

Obligation to devote, easy propaganda, fear, censorship and many other ways to
undermine the hopes of the people has been the strategy for the Venezuelan government to keep
the power and the order. Nowadays, we can see that they failed on the second when
you look at their faces, at their actions and rebellions. This is the day-to-day of some
people in one of the most corrupt, violent and critical countries in the world.
For them the future does not exists, the past has gone away, and in the present, they know
that they have so little to lose, and so much to win.

People concentrating for a protest on October, 2016

Students singing slogans in one of the many protests of 2016

The government accuses them as terrorists, armed with rocks and improvised molotovs fighting against tear gas, riot vehicles, rubber bullets and sometimes fire guns carried by the military police or paramilitary.

121 deaths and more than 2000 injured protesters leaves the last wave of protest in Venezuela. More than 4000 protesters injured since 2014. Red Cross volunteers and firefighters take them before police does.

Graffitis and political signs like this are viewed in almost every wall of towns and cities. the last president and the father of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chavez is the protagonist of the urban and rural walls.

An Ice Cream seller works on streets of Mérida. Informal jobs are the 80% of the country’s laboral base.

“Do not give us back”. Exiled Venezuelans meets every month on public squares to protest against Nicolas Maduro’s regime. There are not official numbers, but approximately 3 millions of Venezuelans has leaved their country since Chavez arrival to the power. Since June, 10.000 Venezuelans crosses the border to Colombia every day with or without hopes to be accepted in any other country

Juan Carlos showing a tattoo with the name of his son, who stays in Venezuela while his dad went to Uruguay to find a job.

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017

Alca with no shoes

Alca Mendoza: A skater with no shoes

Alca is an irreverent, street souled and dreamer rapper, skater and surfer.

Full of good vibes, Alca rolled from here to there driven only with his arms,
because he does not need any shoes to destroy with the skateboard sandpaper.
He was born in Caracas with a congenital problem in his lower body that steeled his legs from the hip,
but since he was a kid, he used to be very curious and his grandma was there to explain a legged and complicated world to Alca.
Despite the fact that she is no longer with him, she stills alive in Alca’s shoulder.
He was six when he saw many skateboarders rolling down through Caracas
when he decided to do the same for the rest of his life, and so he is working on it.