Between the Peruvian Highlands and the Amazon, in the valley of Esquilaya, Puno, over 1,700 metres above sea level, photographer David Arias says one of the country’s best organic coffees is grown. His shot shows several varieties of coffee fruit – red caturra, yellow caturra, typica, bourbon and catimor. ‘In the subjectivity of an image is the essence that allows us to dream and tell stories,’ he says of the photo. Arias says his photographic work explores the construction of stories under the principle of duality and reciprocation – exchange and giving back – practiced in the Peruvian Andes.
Night and day, life and death; pairs in oppositions are striking in the symbolic traditions of Andean arts and perhaps that’s why Arias’s art sticks to black and white.
