FAce-lIft Continuation XXI: Claudia Andujar

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Exhibit Entry Twenty-One Distortion Dialogue

Claudia Andujar 

Photography has been my art home for a very long time. The sounds and smells of the darkroom are etched into my memory like negatives waiting to be developed. I used to live for that moment when you passed through the light trap and entered the cool, quiet cave where time worked differently. There’s something beautifully multi-sensory about darkroom printing—the sound of running water, the sharp sting of the vanilla-scented stop bath (which was only marginally better than the regular one), the warm hush of the red light… or the complete blackout if we were working in analog color.

I love everything about it: the science, the math, the precision. The moment you take 10% off the exposure time and the print sings. Even the heartbreak of a perfectly exposed image ruined by a crease in the heat press, because that, too, is part of the process. Analog photography is rewarding and frustrating in equal measure. It’s a conversation between you and the medium that never really ends.

That same devotion to the craft, to photography as a full-bodied, deeply human act, is something I see in today’s artist: Claudia Andujar.

Andujar, born in Switzerland and raised in Brazil, has spent decades documenting and defending the lives of the Yanomami people, one of Brazil’s largest Indigenous groups. Her work isn’t just visual,  it’s relational, political, and deeply personal. She didn’t just photograph her subjects, she lived with them, learned from them, and became one of their fiercest advocates.

From infrared film experiments to intimate portraits, Andujar’s photography resists the easy gaze. It demands attention, context, and care. Hers is a photography of witness—of showing up, staying, and fighting for the dignity of those rendered invisible by history.

Susi Korihana theri swimming, Catrimani, 1972-1974 Infared Film 

Claudia Andujar

Andujar’s work is inseparable from activism. When she turned her lens on the Yanomami people of the Amazon in the 1970s, it was not to aestheticize their lives—it was to bear witness, to document, and ultimately, to intervene. Her images are not passive; they’re loaded with urgency. They live at the intersection of empathy, testimony, and resistance.

She began photographing the Yanomami as part of a photo essay but soon grew disillusioned with the limitations of journalistic objectivity. What she saw—government negligence, displacement, preventable illness—pushed her into a new role: advocate. She helped launch vaccination campaigns, mapped Yanomami territory to fight land exploitation, and later joined the fight for indigenous land rights.

What makes her work particularly radical is its refusal to stay neutral. The camera, in her hands, is not a detached recorder. It is a participant. An accomplice. She understood that to photograph someone—especially someone from a community under threat—requires accountability. She blurred the line between artist and activist, choosing complicity with the oppressed over distance from the conflict.

Her photographs are not just images; they are arguments. They resist erasure.

Collective house near the Catholic mission on the Catrimani River. Infrared film. Roraima. 1976 © Claudia Andujar. From the exhibition The Yanomami Struggle at the Triennale in Milan.

Claudia Andujar’s ongoing commitment to a community under continual threat

In an age where AI can generate “poverty porn” or indigenous aesthetics at the click of a button—without consent, context, or consequence—Andujar’s work is a powerful counterpoint. Her images are not borrowed symbols. They are built on relationships, ethics, and years of embedded presence. Where AI flattens culture into style, Andujar reminds us that art can carry responsibility.

Andujar’s process reflects this depth. She didn’t just document what she saw—she experimented with light, exposure, and technique to try to reflect how it felt. Her long-exposure photographs of Yanomami rituals don’t just capture the event; they blur the edges of time and form, evoking trance, memory, spirit. She used infrared film to depict otherworldliness and experimented with filters and flash to create layers of visual experience that move beyond realism.

Her work challenges the viewer to sit in discomfort, to feel the blur rather than decode the image. It resists the clinical clarity often associated with documentary photography. Instead, it gestures toward mystery—toward the unknown and the unknowable.

Claudia Andujar , “Marcado Series,” 1981-1983. The photographer was with Yanomami during the first government census, thus the number of identification, it reminded her of Nazi camps./Courtesy Galeria Vermelho

An Uncommon Eye for the Common: Claudia Andujar, Brazil’s Grand Dame of Humanist Photography, is Getting a Pavilion at Inhotim

Claudia Andujar’s work is a testament to the power of photography as a tool for advocacy and connection. Her images are not just visual records; they are embodiments of empathy, commitment, and resistance. In an era where technology can replicate aesthetics but not intent, her photographs remind us that true artistry lies in the depth of human engagement and the courage to stand alongside those whose voices are often marginalized.

Her approach—immersive, respectful, and deeply personal—challenges us to consider the responsibilities that come with creating and sharing images. It’s a call to artists and viewers alike to engage with the world not just as observers, but as participants in the ongoing struggle for justice and dignity.

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All images today are Rivers

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