May 13, 2005

LECTURE AT PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CASA NAVARRA IN ZARAGOZA

Photographic work: three decades of a travelling photographer

D. Francisco Javier Labarga.
Photographer.

lecture Francisco Javier Labarga (1945), from Tudela, gave the closing lecture of his photographic exhibition "Habitasia: three decades of a traveling photographer", in which he spoke about his photographs and travels through different countries in Asia. It took place on Friday, May 13, 2005 at classroom 13 of the Sciences Building Social of the University of Navarra, and was financed by the Chair of Art and Heritage and by the School of Communication. Francisco Javier Labarga is one of Navarra's most international photographers: a "five star" member of the Photographic Society of America (a distinction he shares with Ortiz-Echagüe) and, since 1990, Master of the Federation Internacionale de L'art Photographique (FIAP).

Although he has worked as a cartographer and public works photographer, his professional pride is being a traveler ("if you really love your son, make him travel," he often advises). In his more than twenty-five "escapades", he seamlessly combines his three great hobbies: Asia, cultural anthropology and photography. He meticulously plans each of his trips, and keeps a detailed record of them in his diaries. He likes to get involved in the environment, to become one of the locals. Because of this complicity, his portraits are frank, direct, without trickery. The other great topic is the social or humanized landscape, with a clear preference for the daily life of work, leisure and school. He extracts magnificent formal compositions -which are also unique documents of their kind- from the harmony of the disorganized that prevails in the different Asian civilizations.
And all in black and white, with old-fashioned artisan copies. It is his particular writing on paper, following a long Asian tradition, which financial aid him to make poetry also of the situations of misery. It is not to deceive but to show, beyond the dirty appearance, human dignity and the deep authenticity of traditions:

"In all the situations I unfold, there are a number of objects that maintain their own identity even though they are old or decrepit; these elements are valid in BN because all their drasticism is thus diluted (...)" Travel Diaries SURABAYA-JAVA (INDONESIA, 1983).