Lúa Ribeira – Subida al Cielo
How much should a photographer’s style define the documentation of their subjects? Inspired by religious painting, theater, and film, Lúa Ribeira’s first photobook depicts people in the margins, a fuzzy category that, in this case, includes economic migrants, religious communities, residents of special needs institutions, and those living and working on the streets. Subida al Cielo (Ascent into Heaven) combines five series in a loose narrative that takes us through different social and geographical settings. There is no signposting between the series as you flip through the book’s pages, with transitions only becoming apparent when the content of the images has substantially changed.
The blurred boundaries between projects can be taken as suggestive of a universal human condition, a maligned concept at a time when the splintering of identities is the dominant cultural idea. The book’s arrangement might strike those with such ideological bent as uncomfortably ambiguous because it implies that the artist’s personal vision transcends cultural specificity. While adopting a humanist position is not hip now, a handful of relevant concerns (philosophically and politically) remain constant in Ribeira’s images: destitution, economic struggle, and physical pain. There are as many strategies to image these topics as there are artists, but what’s remarkable about Subida al Cielo is how unflinching it is in its representation of bodies dealing with these challenges.
A handful of relevant concerns (philosophically and politically) remain constant in Ribeira’s images: destitution, economic struggle, and physical pain. There are as many strategies to image these topics as there are artists, but what’s remarkable about Subida al Cielo is how unflinching it is in its representation of bodies dealing with these challenges.
Another integral aspect of the work is how certain scenes look overtly performative, using gestures or props to imply a ritual reenactment or perhaps even the staging of an actual play. This mode of capturing people in action contrasts with genuinely candid scenes (or at least they seem candid). The constant shift of documentary registers creates uncertainty, which I found generative because it kept me questioning the circumstances of the events depicted. The physical closeness between the camera and the subjects suggests that even the more vexing scenes – like the man lying in a field holding a slice of bread – were made with the subjects’ full cooperation.
The trouble with crafting such nebulous images is that their relation to their specific cultural context becomes hard to read (which perhaps entails an alternative kind of achievement). Another issue with overt mise-en-scène is that it can interfere with our perception of a picture’s authenticity. In the best cases, such as in the image of a man resting his face on the ground, Ribeira’s dramaturgy reveals a new perspective from which to consider the subject. Still, there are several instances where the performativity results in a kitschy overtone that risks turning people into characters (this is more evident in Aristócratas, the series about a religious care center in Galicia). As such, Ribeira’s more observational pictures, like the one depicting an injured leg or the urban landscapes in Mexico and Morocco, are more effective in connoting the social conditions at play.
The book includes a loose folded sheet that compiles a few of Ribeira’s transcribed quotes, sketches, and other visual sources of inspiration (paintings by Giotto, Théodore Géricault, Paula Rego, etc.). Showing the artist’s process so directly is unusual. Some readers may find it opens up possibilities to understand the pictures, but I found it unnecessary (like peeking into the magician’s bag), particularly now that contextualizing art practice in terms of research is the norm. Nevertheless, Ribeira must feel that her directorial approach requires legitimization because a vitrine in her recent exhibition at Kutxa Kultur also featured this sort of paratextual information.
An essay by the philosopher Carlos Skliar extends the effort to defend Ribeira’s methodology. Thankfully, the text has further preoccupations, providing a framework that rationalizes the purpose of documentary images that depict communities extraneous to the photographer. Skliar considers how our subjective perception of the world yields normative moral judgments that some decide to instrumentalize to proscribe what the rest are allowed to see. This constrained sense of freedom to represent what artists deem important can be crucial when deciding how to photograph vulnerable communities. While Skliar’s text is dense and, at times, too lyrical, it deftly considers how Ribeira’s images instigate reflection by breaking our complacency of looking away from uncomfortable subjects. Skliar’s position on visual heterodoxy can be summarized in his quotation of the writer Fernando Pessoa: “[T]here are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.”
Subida al Cielo confronts us with issues of class, faith, and history that many prefer to ignore, citing the problematic politics of representation.
Dismissing work like Ribeira’s is often done by people who, independently of their political ideology, only believe in the authority and importance of their own narratives. The consequence of halting conversations too quickly is that we never get to argue whether significant knowledge can be gained despite the alleged offensiveness of pictures. Ribeira has stated that she explores the margins of society to find out if what she’s been told is wrong is actually wrong. “I find myself instinctively going to places that perhaps I shouldn’t go to, touching upon values or morals that belong to my culture and that I’m unsure if they’re right or wrong.” She knows that facing otherness requires an open mind, but unlike Skliar, who suggests that gazes can bestow a kind of justice (implicitly defending the utility of traditional documentary photography), Ribeira keeps such idealistic claims at arm’s length.
Subida al Cielo is a thought-provoking book that functions like a short story collection. Each mini-series is fascinating, but their commingling fosters unexpected readings. A list of titles and locations is provided at the end of the book, but given that the documentarian’s influence is one of the main subtexts here, more robust captioning would have been beneficial to better understand the different social contexts depicted. Nevertheless, Ribeira’s aesthetic decisions regarding subject matter and composition demand an active consideration of her images, which, at least for me, is enough to challenge lazy prejudices around a genre that many love to hate instinctually.
Whether viewers will reflect critically on the issues depicted is a problem faced by any documentary project, not just this book, but if recent history can teach us anything, it is that epistemological progress is made by considering otherness in all its forms. Subida al Cielo confronts us with issues of class, faith, and history that many prefer to ignore, citing the problematic politics of representation. Ribeira’s pictures may be conflictive in substance and style, but to dismiss an entire genre of images is flirting with the dark side of capitalism, because the hardening of human sensibility begins the moment we decide not to look at those who are different from us.
Lúa Ribeira
Dalpine 2023
