For a moment, it feels like you are really living with those people.
“Clearly, Trudy was not a trained photographer. The photos she took are very free, very unstaged, and very in the moment. And honestly, they influenced me. Definitely.
For me, Na Bolom opened a panorama, a visual story about the indigenous people, really. Here in San Cristobal, the photographic archives are few. In fact, as far as I know there are only two. The Na Bolom Archive and the Kramsky Archive.
The Na Bolom archive has some six thousand images — and I felt privileged to be perhaps the third, fourth person to witness the heritage that is this photo library. In the year I worked here, I saw close to six thousand negatives and between three and four thousand slides.
To see the few states of the Mexican Republic that I know in antique old photographs is so amazing. It was really, very enriching.
I got to see a view of Chiapas, one that I did not know. It’s nothing like other history archives which are mainly written stories. Trudy’s work, it contextualised and captured the historical processes of how it was, what the jungle life was like.
Many stories written down in history books tell you about the Lacandones and the jungle. But I find that with the photographs, they give you the experience of being there in the jungle yourself.
For a moment, it feels like you are really living with those people.
I can say that my ideas about their history, through photography were changed.”
