Galleries: Inge Morath Award Winners: CARACAS. ECHOES FROM HEAVEN.

Caracas. Echoes from Heaven is a visual record which allows the viewer to distinguish the countenance of a society which is unfamiliar with fright not to come to terms with the true ontological nature of being both the victim and the aggressor. Just like the ghost that is unaware of its own death, the genuine tragedy lies in the inability to recognize the tragic nature of events. The actual tragedy is not to have a tragedy. Caracas is a city that is unsure about what to do with its dead, perhaps due to the fact that no one is alive. Living like dogs and dying like dogs: the barks rattle like automatic firearms shots: ra-ta-ta-ta! Why be afraid? They’re just pictures, representations. However, reality is always more terrible, tragic, and disheartening. It all becomes clear: there is no heaven when angels carry “high caliber shooting irons” and their shots resound like flutes. Even saints defend themselves from the torment that awaits them on the pavement and the streets in Caracas. They carry weapons and knives, sleep in cemeteries, smoke weed; so much life amidst so much death. In the end it all becomes clear, quiet, as the poet Rafael Cadenas claims: “we kill because we are dead”.