en Pe'trett auf fäaschmiete
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© Jordi Ruiz Cirera,
2011-12.
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And the prize goes to – a
portrait of a Mennonite youth.
Yes, in fact, the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
2012 has gone to London-based, Spanish photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera for his
hauntingly beautiful 2011 photographic portrait of a young Bolivian Mennonite,
Magarita Teichroeb.
According to Marina Vaizay, the 2012 Taylor
Wessing Prize recognizes some 60 recent photographs chosen from among more than
5,000 entries by 2,000 photographers in a blind jurying process. Cicera’s photograph of the 26-year-old
Teichroeb won first prize and a cash award of €15,000, 00 (₤12,000
or about US $24,000.00).
Cicera responded to the prize with, "Estoy encantado de la vida"
or “I am delighted with life,” adding
that he hoped winning the respected prize would help open doors to a career in
media photography. Also according to lainformacion,com, a Spanish-language
press source, Cicera spent time amongst the Bolivian Mennonites in 2010 and 2011
developing a photographic essay story, “Menonos”
(see link below) that was then published in the European print media.
Now, as the British press goes, well, let’s
just say that in our excitement over the prize, English art critic Marina
Vaizay might be forgiven for misidentifying Teichroeb as the member of a
mysterious German sect “similar to
the Amish of Pennsylvania,” rather than the member of a distinctive Dutch and
Swiss ethnic community that would include
the Amish of Pennsylvania, or the misnomer that the Mennonites settled into
Bolivia “centuries ago,” rather than understanding their settlement there as
post-World War II refugees from Europe and as technological separatists from
North America. In appreciation for Cirera’s giftedness and Vaizay’s attention to
this topic, I hope I can shed some additional light on the background.
Lainformacion.com
speaks of Bolivia’s Mennonite’s as being roughly 50,000 in population and
having descended from Anabaptists who left Germany in the 16th
Century (perhaps the source of Vaizay’s errors).
GAMEO.org records that Bolivia’s
Mennonites are descendants of immigrants from the Mennonite colonies in Chaco,
Paraguay, namely Fernheim Colony and Menno Colony, in 1954. These original 11 families have been joined
by many others from Paraguay and Canada throughout the mid-20th
Century. Today, Bolivia’s Low-German or
Russländer Mennonite population is estimated at 50,000 with an adult church
membership of 18,848 as of 2009 (source Gameo.org).
Being akin to their Amish brethren and
sisters [both sects adhering to the Dordrecht Confession of 1623] and both being
filial descendants of the common 16th Century Anabaptist movement
that swept through Continental Europe, lainformacion.com
is correct that the Mennonites of Bolivia are considered to be much more
conservative than their North American cousins, with many continuing to live a
simple subsistence or nominal commercial agrarian lifestyle eschewing many
modern technological conveniences such as electricity or automobiles. Also similar to the Amisher, the Mennonites
of Teichroeb’s community/kolonie seem reticent to be photographed.
Of interest to North America’s Brüderthaler
Mennonites is that the Brüderthaler of Oregon, namely Rev. Johnny Reimer, have
been instrumental in helping to translate Back-to-the-Bible
Broadcasts with Dr. J. Vernon McGee into our shared Plautdietsch language
for transmission into the colonies of Bolivia.
GAMEO quoates Menno Ediger and Isbrand Hiebert, "Colony Mennonites [in Bolivia] have been challenged by difficult conditions to respond nonresistantly to violence and attacks on property. In spite of problems and an uncertain future, most Mennonites are content to live in Boliva. The country has been good to them; they have been good for Bolivia. Bolivia has its own unique history -- how the colonists will fare in that continuing history depends on their willingness and ability to relate to the larger Bolivian society." (ibid).
GAMEO quoates Menno Ediger and Isbrand Hiebert, "Colony Mennonites [in Bolivia] have been challenged by difficult conditions to respond nonresistantly to violence and attacks on property. In spite of problems and an uncertain future, most Mennonites are content to live in Boliva. The country has been good to them; they have been good for Bolivia. Bolivia has its own unique history -- how the colonists will fare in that continuing history depends on their willingness and ability to relate to the larger Bolivian society." (ibid).
Cirera studied photography at la Escuela
de diseño Elisava in Barcelona, Spain, before receiving his Master of Arts in
photojournalism at the London School of Communication.
The 2012 recipients of the Taylor Wessing
Prize have been put on display for the public earlier today (08 Nov, 2012) in
London’s National Portrait Gallery.
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| Rembrandt's Catarina Hooghsaet, ca 1656 |
Cirera is not the first artist to gain
recognition through his or her portraits of Mennonites and Amish. Dutch artist, Rembrandt van Rijn painted portraits
of Amsterdam’s prosperous Mennonite community of the 17th Century, including
Waterlander preacher Cornelis Claesz Anslo and arts patron Catrina Hooghsaet,
who was raised Mennonite.
More
recently, another photographic essay of Latin America’s growing and
increasingly visible Russian Mennonite community was published last year to
critical aplomb by Eunice Adorno, in her Las
Mujeres Flores, featuring the Mennonites of Chihuahua, Mexico.
While I, also, find Cirera’s portrait of Margarita
compelling in that one cannot tell if she has just finished mourning or if her
look is coyly chiding the photographer for catching her is such a harried
state, or for even being there at all, I find Margarita’s personal resemblance,
from the gesture to the hair to the amused yet reproachful look in her eyes, to
my sister Gretchen far too uncanny – even more so as one contemplates that
Gretchen is diminutive of Margaret or Margarita. Perhaps the Russian Mennonites, after all
these years, are still too closely related for comfort.
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