Rostro con peces, Shipibo Conibo, Pucallpa, Peru

1996, printed 1999

Rostro con peces, Shipibo Conibo, Pucallpa, Peru, 1996, printed 1999. Javier Silva Meinel (Peruvian, b. 1949). Gelatin silver print; image: 34 x 34.5 cm (13 3/8 x 13 9/16 in.); paper: 50.4 x 40.5 cm (19 13/16 x 15 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Tom E. Hinson and Diana S. Tittle 2022.69 One of Peru’s most important contemporary photographers, Javier Silva Meinel has been photographing the Indigenous people in the Sierra and Amazon regions of Peru since the 1970s. He seeks, in his images, to evoke the spiritual beliefs of the Andean people. Pucallpa is a major port on the Ucayali River. The Shipibo and Konibo used to be two separate groups but merged through intermarriage. Shipibo means “apemen” and Konibo “fishmen.” This woman is part Shipibo-Konibo, an Indigenous people who live along the Ucayali River in Peru’s Amazon rain forest.