Oscar B. Castillo

I'm a Venezuelan documentary photographer, multimedia artist, and educator focusing on stories about sociopolitical fractures, race and identity, the cycle of violence and the construction of criminal networks, and initiatives for pacification and inclusion mostly for the youth from underpriviledged cοmmunities. After studying psychology at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, I spent many years traveling mostly in Europe until photography took me back to formal educatiοn in Barcelona.

I have documented stories, independent personal projects, and assignments for major media on the complex political process and heavy crisis in Venezuela; have closely followed the situation of religions, exclusion, radicalization, and coexistence in France, the plans for pacification after decades of conflict in Colombia, and migration and the creation of a new Europe shaped by an increasing multicultural mix and facing again the rise of extreme ideologies, among other important global contemporary issues.

My work has been recognized by the Magnum Foundation and the Tim Hetherington Trust and has been awarded the Eugene Smith Fellowship, the Picture of the Year Latin America, the 6x6 Global Talent Program by the World Press Photo, among many other honorary mentions, and has been exhibited in Austria, Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Italy, among others.

As instructor and teacher I see documentary practice as a tool for dialogue and social improvement. With that vision I have taken part in participatory photographic workshops in Venezuelan prisons, for journalism students in post-earthquake Haiti, and with youth at risk in Mexico. I have also participated in formal educatiοnal programs in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Mexico, and Venezuela and in lectures in France, Norway, and the United States, among other places.

For more than 6 years I have been extensively documenting the story of Free Convict, a hip-hop collective born inside the General Penitentiary of Venezuela, a prison built for 750 inmates that had at some point 10 times its capacity. The project was born inside a prison under the total control of the bosses of criminal bands that with their own arsenal of weapons decided on the functioning of the prison, the unwritten strict criminal code of behavior, and the lives of the inmates. They were as well the organizers of the parties, the administrators of the visits, the sponsors and coaches of the sports activities, and were even in charge of the infrastructure as the government has virtually abandoned its duties towards the prison and the care of the peοple under the state's responsibility.

With the support of the Onassis ΑiR Emergency Fellowship, I'm looking to deepen the research and conception of a photobook and multimedia box set about the intimate and unique story of the Free Convict collective, its members, and their relatives. Ι want to examine how to put together in pages this story from the inside about a surreal prison and the long-distance run on a process for reinsertion and reconstruction –a story that is by extension an in-depth look at the upside-down Venezuela of today, a place of chaos and hardship, but also of peοple constantly fighting for hope and dignity, whose story deserves to be shared.

Through traditional photography and with an expanded audiovisual documentary approach made of archival research and documents, collaborative interventions, first person written memories, collages, and music specifically created to accompany the book, this project aims to interconnect the multiple dots of childhood, adolescence, violence, educatiοn, exclusion, family, the nocive mirage of power and aggressive masculinity, and the reality of fast death or hard work for self-redemption.

This period of experimentation and research aims to look at what would be the most compelling way to share an in-depth reflection on how these young men, living in a system that sees them as a lost cause and with all the odds against them, independently built their own plan for change and reinsertion to the society.