© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

What prompted you to tackle and investigate the communities living in the mining regions of Peru and the impacts of its industries?

Thomas Locke Hobbs: Juliaca is a cross-roads city in southern Peru. The roads and rail lines to Arequipa, Cuzco, and Bolivia converge here and, despite not being the capital of its department, the city has grown rapidly to displace its neighbor of Puno as the largest city in the region. I had passed through the city several times over the years and I was always struck by its visual aspect; stark, rapidly constructed, dense and largely without trees, parks, or other urban amenities. Oddly, looking down a street once, I was reminded of a Eugene Atget photograph. There was something about the way light and shadow defined the urban canyon that reminded me of him. Less oddly, the city also reminded of David Goldblatt’s photographs of South Africa, another place structured by extractive industries and hardened racial hierarchies. Juliaca has kind of a bad reputation in Peru, I think it's because a lot of people are obligated to pass through its airport on their way to visit Lake Titicaca. I suppose my photographs can be seen as a retort to propagandistic images of natural beauty used to market the country to tourists, but that was not my motivation. I was interested in the light and the buildings and felt it was a place where I could make interesting photographs that reflected on the contemporary economic and social realities of the city and Peru in general.

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

What difficulties have you encountered in getting people's trust? Have you ever felt that this type of photographic work could somehow empower people?

TLH: I think gaining trust is mostly a matter of spending time somewhere, explaining your intentions, showing samples of work, and answering questions until you eventually fade into the background. This has certainly been the case in Iquitos where I’ve spent over a decade on a long term project. In Juliaca, it’s been a little different in that my visits have been shorter and I’m mostly photographing buildings. As a foreigner walking around with a large format camera, my presence is unusual, to say the least. I do get questioned a lot about what I’m up to. The informality of the economy and real estate markets means that there are a lot of scams and residents are highly attuned to anything out of the ordinary. It’s an unfortunate reality of the general absence of the city and the state in providing basic security and amenities, this is itself, a major theme of the work. I would say that the overall implausibility of my very presence there actually counts in my favor sometimes.

I do believe that art has the possibility to nudge the discourse in a positive direction. I have shown this work to local photographers in Juliaca who have been very interested in seeing their city as a photographic subject. And photographs have definitely been part of the ongoing political discussions around mining, oil extraction, and environmental degradation within Peruvian society, altho perhaps not the kind of photographs I’m making in Juliana. I’m reluctant to make extensive claims for the power of my work to effect positive change. The context of fine art photography is just extremely far removed from the daily struggles of people there.

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Maravilla del Mundo'. Iquitos, Peru is a city of approximately half a million people located on the Amazon river. Its only accesses are by boat or plane. There are no highways connecting it with the rest of Peru, making the city a kind of island. Surrounded on three sides by water, the city itself is dense, heavily urbanized, and generally lacking in parks and vegetation, in contrast to the jungle just beyond. The photographs in this work were taken between 2011 and 2017 on seven separate visits to Iquitos. They depict young gay men in their environs, landscapes of the city, details and interiors. The LGBT community in Iquitos is highly visible but also subject to homophobia, transphobia and violence. There is a manifest desire to transcend place and reality via imported and exotic fantasies which take place against the backdrop of a city in many ways mundane. A book of this work was published by Photogramas in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2018.

Thomas, you've been making work in Peru for extended periods for over a decade. How to avoid being exotic? What were your choices and the criteria in approaching the subject matter and editing it?

TLH: I think that exotic stereotypes serve as a kind of shortcut to legibility by relying on what little the audience might know about a place and catering or pandering to that. I don’t think it’s a trap you fall into but rather a conscious and, I think, lazy choice. The actual lived reality of any place is always so much more complex and nuanced. I try to be attuned to those subtleties and think about ways they can be represented in a photograph.

Jhon is a small artist book published in 2019 by Editora Fotolab Linaibah in an edition of 30. The photographs were made during 2018 and 2019 in various locations in the Peruvian Amazon. Designed by Lina Ibanez and edited by Caio Siqueira.

The election of the new president of Peru gave hope for a change. Do you feel there's more consciousness-raising around the condition of these communities?

TLH: I try my best to follow politics in Peru but they’re contentious and complicated. The ability of Castillo to effect positive change, or even to stay in office, seems very much in doubt at this moment. That said, in the department of Puno, where Juliaca is located, Castillo received 86.9% of the vote in the 2nd round run-off in the elections last year. I believe this represents a wide-spread consciousness that the status quo of the Peruvian state does not work for the people in this region. Peru’s two most valuable exports, copper and gold, largely come from mines in southern Peru, yet the people of these communities and regions are amongst the poorest in the nation. The present neoliberal order, with the elite in Lima largely sucking up the benefits of export growth and investment, is essentially the same as the old colonial structure. The struggle and resistance against this remain ongoing.

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

How important was it to document and relate to experts for this project? In general, how does this project fit into your personal journey through photography?

TLH: I’ve shown the work to a lot of people of different backgrounds. I care a lot about the reactions of people in Peru especially as they would have the deepest understanding of its context. Their reactions have informed my work on subsequent visits. My method is more intuitive than research based but I’m also interested in how my ways of seeing can be influenced by conversations with others. I’m particularly interested in recognitions of seeing something as “true” in the work in the sense that viewers see in the work a reflection of the world as it is.

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

© Thomas Locke Hobbs from the series 'Juliaca'

What have you learned from Juliaca and how has this affected your identity as a photographer and your knowledge of Peru?

TLH: I had a lot of doubts and fears prior to going to Juliaca but I felt compelled to go by a sense of intuition. I guess it’s a reminder to trust that sense and follow my instincts. A project needs a concept but there also needs to be some kind of resonance with the images on a visual level.

Your work has been recently exhibited in Italy at the Lab27 along with that of Alessandro Cinque and Paccarik Orue, who also investigated the region. How meaningful is the comparison and dialogue with other photographers?

TLH: I have great respect for both Paccarik’s and Alessandro’s work. As a viewer, I enjoy seeing practitioners of different backgrounds investigate similar topics. You learn more about the underlying conditions while also appreciating each artist’s unique subjectivity in approaching the subject.

© Installation view 'Juliaca' at Lab27, Treviso, Italy, 2022

© Installation view 'Juliaca' at Lab27, Treviso, Italy, 2022

Thomas Locke Hobbs (website)