THEA SEGALL. (un)edited

Thea Segall visited the Venezuelan Amazon for the first time in 1958. This journey was the beginning of a close bond that Segall established with the inhabitants of communities located in the south of the country and with this region. Having worked with a group of anthropologists who traveled to the Amazon during the 1960s, Segall assumed the role of the photographer of the expeditions, creating an extraordinary visual universe made from an ethnographic point of view. Her method was to select an area of ​​research, register impressions, and edit the images. Examples of this are her publications on the fotosecuencias – a photographic documentation she developed - of casaba (tapioca) and curiara (canoes).

However, in the process of inventorying and cataloging the vast archive of the photographer, we encountered numerous photographs that were not yet published, and an important group of negatives which were never developed. A selection of these images was digitized and is presented for the first time in this publication. The photographs represent activities of the daily life of the Yekuana and Yanomami societies, the private environment of the communities, and their architecture. Also, we can point out an invaluable collection of images on the everyday life of anthropologists carrying out their fieldwork and of the representatives of the catechist mission in the area, whom the photographer documented in close relation with the local community, resulting in a testimony of a friendly bond between them.

THEA SEGALL. (Un)edited is the result of ongoing research and care for this unique archive, culminating in a workshop at the Van Eyck in Maastricht. Using parts of Thea Segall's work yet unknown to the outside world, it is an exercise in exploring the performative nature/procedures of publishing, and its potential effect on the practices of forgetting and memory. It has been an examination to read her work as information, in order to update the knowledge and narrative it offers, finally bringing together different readings in order to make visible a subjective universe hitherto unknown.

This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition with art installation by Susana Mejía, Pamela Rosenkranz, and Anicka Yi (06.05.2018 – 19-08.2018), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. Curated by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Rosa de Graaf - and the Magical Riso 2018 InLab, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht.

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