A professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies gave a lecture about photography from Argentina’s “Dirty War,” Thursday evening at the College of Nursing and Health Innovation.
The lecture was the last of the 2010 Humanities Lecture Series.
Professor David William Foster studied the work of nine photographers and shared their photos with the audience that gathered in the Innovation Auditorium.
Between 1976 and 1983 the Argentine government tortured and killed thousands of liberals and suspected dissidents, Foster said. An estimated 30,000 Argentines disappeared and only 10,000 have been accounted for to this day.
Foster explained the importance of each photo during the horrific genocide.
“Argentina put emphasis on creating memories on the dictatorship where as other countries say, ‘It’s over and done with,’” he said.
The nine photographers included: Eduardo Gil, Marcelo Brodsky, Gabriel Diaz, Adriana Lestido, Gabriela Liffschitz, Marcos Lopez and Gabriel Valansi.
The photograph themes ranged from homeless children, to women’s prisons and nighttime photography in Argentina during the Dirty War.
Lestido, an accomplished photographer who has artwork on display at the famous Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, is a native of Buenos Aires.
Her photos showed the tough conditions that the women lived in.
“These women are rough, they know how to take care of themselves,” Foster said. “They’re skilled with knives. They must know how to protect themselves.”
The lecture came as a shock to some people who did not know of the Dirty War in Argentina.
“The photographs were really moving especially since I had never heard of the Dirty War before,” said Meagan Vasey, a psychology senior. Foster “also did a good job of giving background information about each photographer and photo.”
Foster continues to study and write books about Argentina and the Latin American culture, but not for much longer.
“I’m coming to the end of my career and I wish I had gotten to study these historically significant photos earlier in my life,” said Foster.
Contact the reporter at hdvorak@asu.edu
