Alejandro Chaskielberg

‘La Creciente. The islanders of the River Parana Delta’

The Parana River is the second largest in South America and more than one hundred million people live on it. Where the Parana flows into the Plata River, it forms a Delta of hundreds of small, low, islands. ‘La Creciente’ is a photographic essay about the community of islanders who live in this Delta. It is also the first, already finished stage of a more extensive work covering the whole of the Parana River basin and the Guarani culture which exists there.

The Delta is an introspective place with unstoppable vegetation, with nature marking the rhythm of life. It is also a magical place, filled with water and silence. This work is the life of the Delta, its breath, its change. Chaskielberg, using the language of documentary in his use of plates, long exposure time, use of artificial light, reflects its timeless aura through his depiction of its people and their work.

Background

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1977

Alejandro Chaskielberg began his photographic training at the age of 16, at CC Rojas and later with the Graphic Reporters' Association. In the year 2000 he returned as Director of Photography at the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (ENERC). From the age of 18 he has worked in editorial photography for different magazines, newspapers and agencies. He has also directed documentaries about the visual and plastic arts for Canal Ciudad Abierta in Buenos Aries.

He began to show his own personal work in 2006, at the Cruce de Artes, and in the same year won the Currículum Cero prize at the Ruth Benzacar gallery. He exhibited photographs in collective form at the Hermeth gallery, La ira de Dios, Isidro Miranda, Museu JB Castagnino de Rosario, CC Recoleta, CC Borges, Salta Musuem of Contemporary Art, Espai Contemporani d'Art de Mendoza, Museu R Vidal de Corrientes, and at the Latin-American Museum  of Art in  California.