"Mat Jacob: Chiapas, Zapatista Insurrection in Mexico, 1995-2013"

The exhibition titled "Mat Jacob: Chiapas, Zapatist Insurrection in Mexico, 1995-2013," will be presented at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico, from January 21 to April 24, 2017. The exhibition centers on four themes: Autonomy, The People, State of the Situation, and The March. The show includes a selection of forty black and white photographs and three photomurals. In 1995, French photographer Mat Jacob leaves for Chiapas to witness with his lens the indigenous uprising that began in 1994, when thousands of armed people wearing masks occupied the main cities of that southeastern Mexican state. From his encounter with the inhabitants of the town of Guadalupe Trinidad, located in the heart of the Lacandon jungle, Mat Jacob develops the basis for his work about that rebellious movement. During two decades and seven trips to the area, Jacob operates a back and forth documentary between those politically transformative events that involve a struggle, and the life of the community, its forms of democratic participation and ways for vindicating their indigenous and peasant identity. During these trips he documented the saga with empathy and exactitude. These photographs convey the dignity and determination of men and women who write a new chapter in the long and fascinating story of the struggles for freedom. Mat Jacob was born in Paris in 1966. His photographic work began in the late 1980s in China, where he happened to be by chance and where he documented the beginning of a dramatic social transformation. Between 1993 and 1999, Jacob travels around the world to delve into the universe of education. In the school classrooms and playgrounds of Asia, Europe, and America, he observes these childhood places where personalities are forged and in which questions about freedom and possible rebellions are born. Since 2011, and echoing his documentary work, Jacob also experiments with other forms and languages for approaching images through short films for the Web and action films.