(Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1992)
Wendy Ewald
from stories told by Alicia and María Vásquez
photographs by Wendy Ewald and children of Ráquira
Magic Eyes is a collaboration that grew out of Wendy Ewald's experiences in the village of Ráquira in the Colombian Andes between 1982 and 1984. The book combines photographs taken by Ewald and her students with stories told by two local women, María Vásquez and her daughter, Alicia. Together, Ewald's students and the Vásquezes present the images and experiences of what Barbara Majuica has called "the rich Andean folk culture, in which magic and nature are inseparable components of equal value." The magic eyes belong to Alicia, who recounts her story of the evil eye, which she associates with the camera lens. Alicia and her mother powerfully convey the difficult life in the squatter settlements outside of Bogatá. Great poverty and violence are seen through eyes taught from early in life to notice the magical; the results are deeply poetical. The New York Times has called Magic Eyes "moving, intimate, and unsparing."
Back to Wendy Ewald bibliography.