Magic Eyes: Scenes from an Andean Childhood

by Wendy Ewald (Editor), Alicia Vásquez, María Vásquez

MAGIC EYES is a collaboration that grew out of Wendy Ewald's experiences in the village of Raquira in the Colombian Andes between 1982 and 1984. The book combines photographs taken by Ewald and her students with stories told by two local women, Maria Vasquez and her daughter, Alicia. Together, Ewald's students and the Vasquezes present the images and experiences of what Barbara Majuica has called "the rich Andean folk culture, in which magic and nature are inseparable components of equal value." The magic eyes belong to Alicia, who recounts her story of the evil eye, which she associates with the camera lens. Alicia and her mother powerfully convey the difficult life in the squatter settlements outside of Bogata. Great poverty and violence are seen through eyes taught from early in life to notice the magical; the results are deeply poetical. The New York Times has called MAGIC EYES "moving, intimate, and unsparing."

Genres: Nonfiction, Photography, Art

180 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Wendy Ewald (born in 1951) is an American photographer and educator.

Wendy Ewald was born in Detroit, Michigan, graduated from Abbot Academy in 1969 and attended Antioch College between 1969–74, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied photography with Minor White. She embarked on a career teaching photography to children and young people internationally. In 1969 & 1970, she taught photography to Innu and Mi'kmaq Native-American children in Canada. Between 1976–80 she taught photography and film-making to students in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in association with Appalshop, a media co-op. In 1982, she traveled to Ráquira, Colombia, on a Fulbright fellowship working with children and community groups; spending a further two years in Gujarat, India. Ewald is married to Tom McDonough, a writer and cinematographer. They live in the Hudson Valley of New York with their son, Michael.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[ALICIA MOGOLLON · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ewald creates a wonderful book from the photographs of Andean children she taught photography and includes a heartwrenching yet fascinating story of a young girl growing up amid superstition and hardship.