‘They’d rarely seen television’: childhood magic in rural Colombia – in pictures
Magic Eyes is a true-life novel about magic, violence and the powers of seeing. Told through the voices of Alicia Vásquez and her family, it is a vivid memoir of love and revenge, survival and responsibility. Interweaving the story are remarkable photographs by Wendy Ewald and the children she taught in the Colombian village where she lived between 1982 and 1984.
The photographs were taken by Wendy Ewald throughout Colombia with a two-and-a-quarter format camera between 1982 and 1988 and by her fifth grade students in Ráquira with #126 Kodak Instamatic cameras between 1982 and 1983. The children learned to shoot, develop and print their own photographs.
Ewald lent them Polaroid and Instamatic cameras and gave them assignments to photograph and write about themselves, their families, their animals and their fantasies. At first they had difficulties with the camera. Instead of framing someone’s face, they often photographed knees or feet.
Colombia, Ráquira