Carlos Andrés Bernate Martinez is a Colombian documentary photographer - photojournalist and visual artist, he has worked for various social causes, moved by passion and social sense, has formed its criteria from the thorough research he has done. Together with a multidisciplinary group, he has created the project Tejiendo Memoria, which cares about the current situation in his nation, Colombia and attempt to generate spaces where they can share their work and contribute positively to the construction of memory. He like to explore and understand the social dynamics that make us human's or otherwise make us lose humanity. For him; his personal project is to use photography as testimony of the silenced.
Carlos Andrés Bernate Martinez is a Colombian documentary photographer - photojournalist and visual artist, he has worked for various social causes, moved by passion and social sense, has formed its criteria from the thorough research he has done.
Together with a multidisciplinary group, he has created the project Tejiendo Memoria, which cares about the current situation in his nation, Colombia and attempt to generate spaces where they can share their work and contribute positively to the construction of memory. He like to explore and understand the social dynamics that make us human's or otherwise make us lose humanity. For him; his personal project is to use photography as testimony of the silenced.
He has exhibited several times his photographic work in galleries both nationally and internationally:
Exhibitor in the “Second Pinhole Showroom” at the University Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá (2012).
Exhibitor in the Audiovisual Documentary Showroom “Un mundo de color bajo tierra” during the XVII Mountain and Speleology Week in Bogotá (2014).
Exhibitor in the “Documentary Photography Showroom TPIF” at A Seis Manos in Bogotá (2014).
Exhibitor in the 21° Latin American Documentary Photography Contest “Los Trabajos y los Días” in Medellín (2015).
Exhibitor in “Narrativas Documentales Contemporáneas” at the University Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá (2015).
Exhibitor in “Shot, First Contest of Documentary Photography and Graphic Reporting with Mobile Devices” at the University Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá (2015).
Exhibitor in “Mujer Faltal 2016” at the Gilberto Alzate Avedaño Foundation in Bogotá together with a colective directed by the artist Matilde Guerrero and the support of the “Red Comunitaria Trans” in the Santa Fe neighborhood with the protection of IDARTES and the Mayor´s office of Bogotá (2015).
Finalist in the contest Alto Contraste of the observatory of racial discrimination in Colombia (2016).
Exhibitor in Photo Patagonia “I International Festival of Analogue Photography and Alternative Processes” at Santa Cruz Cultural Complex in Río Gallegos, Argentina (2016).
Exhibitor and the winner of the “Festival INstantes” that exhibit my work "Raúl Left To War; Such Pain, Such Shame" in Avintes, Portugal (2017).
Carlos has written and published his work in various circulating media widely known throughout the country and abroad like Pacifista (Vice Colombia), Vice Colombia, Revista Semana, Revista Arcadia, Reconciliación Colombia, Revista Semana Sostenible, Regional Special Revista Semana, Publimetro (Metro News Paper), Agencia Plano (Brazil), The City Paper, Espacio GAF and FuriaMag.
Also has contributed to international agencies like NurPhoto (Italia), Pacific Press Agency
(Filipinas), Depo Photo (Turquia), Agencia de Cronistas Gráficos (Ecuador), Agencia
Plano (Brasil), Agence France-Presse (AFP), Associated Press (AP), Agencia EFE, Getty Images.
Between the decades of the 80s and 90s the population of La Virgen de Quipile in Cundinamarca, Colombia, suffered a guerrilla raid whose plan was to have a strategic position that would benefit its tactics of war, gaining power over populations close to the big cities and controlling the intermunicipal routes that connected them. Their arrival begins in Viotá, another municipality in Cundinamarca, where fronts 42 of the Eastern Bloc of the FARC EP, led by the "Negro Antonio", took over the territory and carried out one of the largest forced conscription in the history of the war in Colombia.
La Virgen Inspection of the municipality of Quipile. It is located only 80 km from Bogotá. (2016)
Don Dario, one of the oldest inhabitants of the region. It has had to deal with the arrival of the guerrillas in the 80s, the arrival of the paramilitaries in 2003 and finally the incursion of the Colombian army that is established in 2008. Currently the chaos that have generated the three actors of the Colombian conflict are disputing the territory, forces many of its inhabitants to withdraw from the territory. (2015)
This shirt was used by some students from the Joaquin Alfonso Medina Institution, many of these children grew up watching how the armed groups recruited or murdered their families. (2014)
Some of the families in the region can not take their children to a school or day care centers since the war in the area has dimished job vacancies, so some children must help to the home sustenance since very young, also the number of malnutrition in these young people is very high, because of the difficult entry to the territory due to the armed conflict and the damaged roads, food does not arrive in large quantities. (2014)
Eighteen quilates of gold between the teeth, a legacy of a culture that some people try to forget. (2016)
German was one of the first young people to suffer for the arrival of the armed groups, forced as every member of the community to have to collaborate with the side that arrived at the town, until one day a man known as "Guajiro", who According to the community was a member of the guerrillas, murdered German with a machete, cut him to the point of almost cutting off his head. around 47 stabs left him his killer. (2016
n the town of La Virgen the work of the land is still done in a traditional way, but as its inhabitants have left the village, the big companies are those who have bought the land that they obtain at very low prices, these companies more industrialized brought all their machinery and their people from other cities, further diminishing the possibilities of employment in the community. (2014)
Hector Vargas without any protection in the middle of the mountain, almost falls when he was trying to secure the cane that is on the mule, these workers have no insurance at the time when they are doing their work, if they get hurt everything comes out from their salary, as in the worst days do not exceed COP $10,000 per day. (2016)
The mules have already been tamed in such a way that they alone from the point where they cut the cane to the sugar mill arrive on their own, without the need of someone to guide them. (2014)
The sweet gold as it´s called by some of its inhabitants, due to the panela has been the one that has sustained them economically since the village´s foundation. (2016)
The rattle of guns, the sound of the rifles has filled the colombian territory of noise, where bullets have been tools, say the guerrillas from FARC EP "with which the solution is sought social justice".
The nights in the camp reach total darkness generating a certain tranquility but is overshadowed by the noise of the bombardment, which cut the sound of animals, the screech of crickets and the breath of those who receive them. Men and women from the guerrilla become shadows in the middle of the Colombian jungle, and if the peace process despite all obstacles doesn´t reach an end these shades will be perpetual and who is behind this shadows should delve deeper into the darkness trying to seek a light.
These images were a contribution for different agencies and media like The City Paper Bogota, Espacio GAF, Getty Images, EFE, AFP, AP, Nurphoto.
The first rays of light at dawn slowly manage to disappear that perpetual darkness that hides them between the jungle.
As an allusion to the cavern of Plato, the outside forest is transferred to the interior of their shelters or "caletas", as they call their improvised homes. Thanks to the light.
Antonio has spent 10 out of his 22 years in the lineups of the FARC EP. Antonio states that "The weapon does not mean that it is our point of view or starting point but we use it as a means to protect our lives and as a tool for the Colombian Government to listen to us because it was never possible to have a dialogue that would avoid war".
Lucero Rodríguez joins the FARC EP guerrillas at the age of 16. Today, 33-year-old Lucero says that the only moments she will never forget are the bombings, especially the attack on the camping site that killed commander Jorge Briseño, she was very close by. Lucero remembers how that early morning, an "Explorer", as they call the planes that do the bombings, was flying over. With tears in her eyes Lucero expresses that this loss was especially hard because Jorge was like a father to her.
Tatiana with her beautiful belly from her 7-month-pregnancy expresses great happiness for her due date which is approaching fast! But this happiness is overshadowed by the opinion of some civilians who think that “We are monsters"
Michael Steven Guevara, guerrillero from the Teofilo Forero Castro column of the FARC EP, from Buenaventura, wishes with great hope to not carry his rifle anymore. What he really wants is "to carry a pencil to stop the fight of weapons and transform it into the fight of ideas".
Almost at sunset, Miller repairs the furnace they build with wood and mud before darkness takes over the jungle again.
The operative made in "El Bronx" starts on May 28th where state authorities intervened by surprise, finding there signs of violent crimes and tunnels of over 100m used for illicit activities of criminal gangs, in these operatives more than 2,000 police officers and 180 members of the army participated. In some of the rooms signs of dismemberment were found, using tanks of acid to disappear the bodies or dogs trained to eat the residues, according to some testimonies of people who lived there, some were eaten alive in way of torture by dogs trained only to kill. The police officers had to sacrifice these dogs because they were extremely violent.
Many children grew up among these macabre walls, some of them as I was told by the people inside El Bronx there suffered terrible abuse
Don Omar leaves home after having begged the police officers so he could keep his home, leaving asks them "please could you take out some animals that are inside" because of their future is uncertain would like them to finish in a home and not slaughtered or on the streets.
s believed that the word cumbia comes from the cumbé african term, which means celebration. It is not only another tradicional colombian dance, its development was a whole historical process that came from the mulattage, because it was the testimony of the struggle that the black man had in order to conquer the indigene woman in colonial times
About 35 years ago, between the first days of December, in the restaurant of María Luz Saucedo during a party, Maximiliano Guerra, Jhon Alvarado, Orlando Ramos and Jose Ignacio Mejia as to congregate their village, had the idea of go to Botón town to hire some "milleros" to give life to what for more than three decades has been called "La Cumbia del 30".
Everything starts a few days before December 30th, when the “Jhonson” small motorized canoes, begin arriving to the village with all the merchandise for the festivities, where large amounts of alcohol and food come with some visitors from others nearby villages that get to the town for this great celebration. Some children from the village that work on the “Ciclo-Taxis”, are the ones who pick up these merchandise and distribute it around the village.
The roosters, that are the animal alarm from this region are overshadowed by the explosion of gunpowder that warn the village that it is the 30th, that already is the day of the cumbia. Throughout the day, the Guerra family which is one of the most ancient in the village and one of the participants that created and developed this festivity, are the ones that warn the village with these handmade fireworks, while they prepare the square in front of their houses where the dance is made. At about 5 in the afternoon, the men from the Guerra family bring a plantain palmtree of about 3mts high and they cut the tip of the leaves, as tradition dictates in the cumbia in the region, they dig a hole in the ground so they can bury it and the women from the family are the ones who begin decorating it.
Between 7 and 8 in the night, the milleros arrive to the village going all over it in a car while they play their instruments to cheer up the people with their fiesta, when they reach the Guerra family's house where everything is already prepared to start the party. Until ‘el mono’ arises, as some guamaleros say, to the tune of the milleron they dance, laugh and get drunk and between drinks and dances the families are reunited, as some had to leave the village to look for better lives but they return to share this tradition, which has not lost its charm and remains a symbol of union in the small region of Guamal, Magdalena.
his work was published in The City Paper Bogotá and FuriaMag.
Celebration in the city of Bogota for the signing of bilateral cease fire between the Colombian government and the FARC EP. 2016
Celebration in the city of Bogota for the signing of bilateral cease fire between the Colombian government and the FARC EP. 2016
Symbolic act of the organization Mantas Negras in the Bolivar Plaza in Bogotá, for the alarming numbers of children dying at La Guajira. 2016
Symbolic act of the organization Mantas Negras in the Bolivar Plaza in Bogotá, for the alarming numbers of children dying at La Guajira. 2016
symbolic act of the organization Mantas Negras in the Bolivar Plaza in Bogotá, for the alarming numbers of children dying at La Guajira. 2016
Protesters throw a "Molotov" to Antiriot Police during the riots of the Paro Nacional. Bogotá 2016
Antiriot police during the disturbances of the Paro Nacional. Bogotá 2016
Antiriot throws a brick during the riots of International worker´s Day. Bogotá 2016
Child selling peanuts and energy drinks to members of the antiriot police during demonstrations of the day of worker´s in Bogotá. 2015
A disabled man kicks a tear gas canister thrown by antiriot police during the riots of International worker´s Day. 2015
Carlos Andrés Bernate Martínez
Documentary Photographer - Photojournalist
(+57) 317 852 2174
