{"id":247320,"date":"2026-01-23T05:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T05:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/247320\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T05:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T05:23:10","slug":"otherworldly-landscapes-and-bolivian-culture-merge-in-river-claures-mystical-photos-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/247320\/","title":{"rendered":"Otherworldly Landscapes and Bolivian Culture Merge in River Claure’s Mystical Photos \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSome people say that my work questions dominant notions of cultural identity, and perhaps that\u2019s true,\u201d says Bolivian photographer River Claure<\/a>. \u201cBut I\u2019m drawn to many things, such as thinking about landscapes, or the way clouds appear in a bright blue sky in some of my photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claure\u2019s atmospheric photos capture daily life and dream-like scenes in Bolivia, infused with magical realism<\/a>, that prompt our curiosity about community, narrative, and the land. He\u2019s based in a valley called Cochabamba, where his grandparents immigrated in the 1970s to escape political conflicts in their former home, an Indigenous Andean community called Calacota.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cPalliri\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, \u201cI was not very conscious\u2014nor did I value my Indigenous roots at all; in fact, it is something I specifically denied,\u201d Claure says in an interview with koozArch<\/a>. \u201cI remember episodes in my teens where I didn\u2019t want my friends in high school to know that my grandmother was Chola. It was something of which I was ashamed, although of course now, I find that ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Claure began committing himself seriously to making art, he was awakened to his ancestry and local community in a new way, realizing that what he had tried to suppress in his youth was actually exactly what he most needed to explore. His work is often informed by Christian symbolism, such as in the Virgin Cerro works, in which a figure sits within a mound of sand and assumes the form of a religious icon.<\/p>\n

Play is another feature of his practice, not just in the tableaux he captures\u2014such as soccer players and expressive local children\u2014but also in his approach. \u201cI would say I play a lot: I play professionally,\u201d Claure says in a statement. \u201cI play in a kind of grand contemporary theater, blending everything: my family\u2019s history, my Indigenous roots, my post-internet contradictions, fashion, literature, the Latin American colonial archive, foundational myths, and much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

His work is imbued with a sense of nostalgia\u2014a longing for connections to \u201cthe mystical, the epic, and the sacred, in order to create rituals of my own invention,\u201d he says. In scenes that volley between happenstance and choreography, he explores time, community, and relationships between reality and fantasy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cVilla Adela\u201d<\/p>\n

Claure\u2019s images emphasize individuals, Indigenous customs, the earth, and belief systems as a way of resisting capitalistic influences. And through compositions that feel dreamy and mysterious\u2014even timeless\u2014he generates his own myths as a way to question values and the forces of transition.<\/p>\n

As part of the 2026 Vital Impacts<\/a> awards, which support photographers who illuminate environmental challenges within their communities, Claure is the recipient of the E.O. Wilson Fellowship<\/a>. The fellowship supports his project titled A Boat for the Future of the Mountains, which he describes as \u201ca time capsule project\u201d focused on communities in the Bolivian Andes where lakes and rivers are disappearing. See more on his Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cFutbolistas 5\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cOcuri\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cVirgen Cerro 1\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cPiedad 2\u201d<\/p>\n

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