Claudia Andujar

  • Claudia Andujar was born in Switzerland in 1931, and then moved to Oradea, on the border between Romania and Hungary, where her paternal family, of Jewish origin, lived. With the persecution of Jews during World War II, she fled with her mother to Switzerland and then emigrated to the United States. In 1955, she came to Brazil. Having spent most of her life in a permanently foreign condition, Claudia turned photography into a working tool and a means of contact with the country. Over the following decades, she travelled all over Brazil and collaborated with national and international magazines such as Life, Aperture, and Look, among many others. For almost seven decades, Andujar has been thoroughly involved with the Yanomami community in the Amazon; grappling with the challenges of visually interpreting their daily lives in sharp black and white imagery, as well as attempting to visually translate their shamanic culture through more experimental techniques like flash devices, oil lamps, and infrared film. Her works deliberately stands in the threshold of visual collage, documentary, and activism, perceiving photography as a tool for political change and raising awareness to the complexity of the daily life and traditions of her subjects, their restless resistance and dignity, and the ongoing injustices they have been subjected to for centuries. Andujar’s images of life in the rainforest and her political involvement with Indigenous causes made her an internationally recognized leading voice in defense of the Indigenous people of Brazil, whose land has been in constant threat by development and illegal mining activities, and more recently by a far-right government that have been actively revoking the rights of Brazilian native populations.

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Claudia Andujar

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Claudia Andujar was born in Switzerland in 1931, and then moved to Oradea, on the border between Romania and Hungary, where her paternal family, of Jewish origin, lived. With the persecution of Jews during World War II, she fled with her mother to Switzerland and then emigrated to the United States. In 1955, she came to Brazil. Having spent most of her life in a permanently foreign condition, Claudia turned photography into a working tool and a means of contact with the country. Over the following decades, she travelled all over Brazil and collaborated with national and international magazines such as Life, Aperture, and Look, among many others. For almost seven decades, Andujar has been thoroughly involved with the Yanomami community in the Amazon; grappling with the challenges of visually interpreting their daily lives in sharp black and white imagery, as well as attempting to visually translate their shamanic culture through more experimental techniques like flash devices, oil lamps, and infrared film.

Her works deliberately stands in the threshold of visual collage, documentary, and activism, perceiving photography as a tool for political change and raising awareness to the complexity of the daily life and traditions of her subjects, their restless resistance and dignity, and the ongoing injustices they have been subjected to for centuries. Andujar’s images of life in the rainforest and her political involvement with Indigenous causes made her an internationally recognized leading voice in defense of the Indigenous people of Brazil, whose land has been in constant threat by development and illegal mining activities, and more recently by a far-right government that have been actively revoking the rights of Brazilian native populations.