AwardsSeptember 20, 2019
Viki Ospina, National Photography Award
he Ministry of Culture of Colombia announced Viki Ospina, one of the country’s first photojournalists, as the winner of the National Photography Award. This award, given as part of Colombia’s Stimulus Program, is the most important of its type in the country, with the winner receiving 40 million pesos.
A jury composed of Santiago Rueda Fajardo, Carlos Albero de San Francisco Uribe Uribe, and Nydia Elisa Gutiérrez Moros decided unanimously on Ospina’s 15-photograph series Plaza de Mercado de La Concordia (La Concordia Market Square). The Square is a City of Bogotá cultural interest site, and the photographs spotlight a historical icon of the city. Although the photographs date from 1970, Ospina kept them as an unpublished personal project.
The jury’s official resolution emphasizes that “the process of retroactive revision in the archive gives new meaning to tensions between urban and rural modes of life that remain alive in the collective memory of a city like Bogotá. At the same time, they highlight the intensity and quality of Ospina’s work as a portrait photographer.”
“The country and the city dialogued there on a daily basis,” the artist notes about this series. “The peasants and the workers captivated me. So, there came a time when I no longer went there to shop, but to photograph people with my Canon F1.” She adds that “the value of this archive resides in the fact that it preserves customs that are more and more difficult to see. None of those rural classes that brought the countryside into the city are left in Bogotá.”
Today, the La Concordia Market Square (which opened in 1934) in under structural renovation by the District Institute for Cultural Legacy, with a budget nearing the 18 billion pesos. Santa Fé Gallery, an important art space in Bogotá, recently opened in the lower level.
Viki Ospina, the pseudonym of María Victoria Villalba Stewart (Barranquilla 1948), studied Philosophy and Humanities in Madrid (Spain) and film photography with Adelqui Camusso, and she attended Centro Teatro Popular de Bogotá’s Film and Television Workshop. A professor of photography at Universidad de Los Andes, she is renowned for her photo essays on popular culture and Colombia and the Barranquilla Carnival, especially her series La Gallada, focusing on street children and the people of Bogotá.
The jury also awarded honorary mentions to Gerard Jan Bartelsman, Iván Darío Herrera Gómez, and Francois Eugene Carl Dolmetsch, for the projects Romería (Pilgrimage), La espera (The Wait), and Gráfica popular colombiana (Colombian Folk Graphics), respectively.
A jury composed of Santiago Rueda Fajardo, Carlos Albero de San Francisco Uribe Uribe, and Nydia Elisa Gutiérrez Moros decided unanimously on Ospina’s 15-photograph series Plaza de Mercado de La Concordia (La Concordia Market Square). The Square is a City of Bogotá cultural interest site, and the photographs spotlight a historical icon of the city. Although the photographs date from 1970, Ospina kept them as an unpublished personal project.
The jury’s official resolution emphasizes that “the process of retroactive revision in the archive gives new meaning to tensions between urban and rural modes of life that remain alive in the collective memory of a city like Bogotá. At the same time, they highlight the intensity and quality of Ospina’s work as a portrait photographer.”
“The country and the city dialogued there on a daily basis,” the artist notes about this series. “The peasants and the workers captivated me. So, there came a time when I no longer went there to shop, but to photograph people with my Canon F1.” She adds that “the value of this archive resides in the fact that it preserves customs that are more and more difficult to see. None of those rural classes that brought the countryside into the city are left in Bogotá.”
Today, the La Concordia Market Square (which opened in 1934) in under structural renovation by the District Institute for Cultural Legacy, with a budget nearing the 18 billion pesos. Santa Fé Gallery, an important art space in Bogotá, recently opened in the lower level.
Viki Ospina, the pseudonym of María Victoria Villalba Stewart (Barranquilla 1948), studied Philosophy and Humanities in Madrid (Spain) and film photography with Adelqui Camusso, and she attended Centro Teatro Popular de Bogotá’s Film and Television Workshop. A professor of photography at Universidad de Los Andes, she is renowned for her photo essays on popular culture and Colombia and the Barranquilla Carnival, especially her series La Gallada, focusing on street children and the people of Bogotá.
The jury also awarded honorary mentions to Gerard Jan Bartelsman, Iván Darío Herrera Gómez, and Francois Eugene Carl Dolmetsch, for the projects Romería (Pilgrimage), La espera (The Wait), and Gráfica popular colombiana (Colombian Folk Graphics), respectively.
