River Claure’s Once Upon a Time in the Jungle delves into the ‘Amazonian Far West’ and its hidden narratives to unveil the dynamics of power and domination that characterize the territory of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
A masterful blend of still and moving images seize to capture the latent violence permeating the Amazon landscape – one marked by the weight of colonial legacy, the devastating extraction of natural resources and the imposition of foreign ideologies.
As a result of canoeing for over 377 km in southern Ecuador and northern Peru, where young rappers, soldiers, local community leaders, elders, families, and children play and perform in the guise of cowboys as the protagonists of their own history, Claure manages to challenge the stereotypes that have defined the photographic representation of the Amazon so far.
Made possible by the EXPOSED Grant for Contemporary Photography, the exhibition allows to explore new imaginary and speculative registers, where the promises and threats of the Western world clash, and special rituals – coined by the artist himself – serve as a strategy of resistance against the hegemony of capitalism.