Hesto ha sido

Title: Hesto ha sido

Photographer(s): Luis Weinstein

Writer(s): Luis Weinstein

Designer(s) : Carolina Zañartu S.

Publisher(s): Kettler, Dortmund, Germany

Year: 2015

Print run:

Language(s): Spanish, English

Pages: 44

Size: 23 x 30 cm

Binding: Softcover

Edition:

Print : Druckerei Kettler, Bönen, Germany

Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Chile, 1973

ISBN: 978-3862064823

More than 40 years after the coup d'état in Chile, South American photographer Luis Weinstein takes a look at his country under the Pinochet military dictatorship that lasted some 17 years in his current project.

In his collection of black-and-white analogue photographs, Weinstein tells the story of all the unknown resistance fighters who shaped daily life at that time and to whom the publication is dedicated. His account begins with the front page of a newspaper with the headline of the arrival of the military to power in 1973 and the suicide of President Allende. Based on this, the book contains numerous visual quotations that initiate a dialogue with the story behind the images.

The title of the book Esto ha Sido - 'This has been' refers to Roland Barthes. With this description, the French philosopher tried to capture the essence of documentary photography, according to which the objective - contrary to what is often claimed - is not to reproduce the truth, but to reveal the subtle layers and multifaceted conditions of human life.

The publication refers to the documentary aspect in terms of format, equipment and renouncing photographic post-processing, and thus to an era not yet determined by the Internet in the representation of historical facts. In its form of visual commentary, Esto ha Sido refers to characteristic elements and artistic topoi in the genre of the famous Chilean photo books since 1970.