MEMORY OF COLORS       a masterpiece by Jaime Ocampo-Rangel

Memories of Colors brings together the latest authentic cultural minorities in one big masterpiece.

This masterpiece is the portrait of the latest authentic ethnic groups of this world, symbolically related with colors.

It was in 1999 that the franco-Colombian artist Jaime Ocampo-Rangel initiated this photographic project, at once intimate and comitted.

The discovery of the Kogui people in his homeland was such a personal and artistic revelation for him that he decided to photography all the ethnic groups threatened by globalization, and symbolically related them with the color of their cultural identity.

Each group will appear in front of a background of the same color of its skin, its clothes or any object revealing its closeness with spirituality or aesthetic : therefore, white will designate the Kogui Indians from Colombie ; ochre the Imbas from Namibie ; red, the Wayanas Indians from Guyana ; blue, the Touarges from sahara, and so on…

The indigenous peoples are the descendants of the original owners of the lands on wich they lived. Having suffered several waves of colonization, they are today under cultural, economic and social domination. They are also political minorities within States of Nation which does not recognize them as distinct peoples.
Jaime Ocampo Rangel met 17 touches of rebel colors from globalization. Colors that have kept their languages, their cultures and their ancestral lifestyles.

Memory of Colors will be a book, an exhibition and a movie

Based on specifics ethnographics researches, the book will tell the stories and the singularities of each cultural minority.

The exhibit will showcase a hundred large pictures hung on both sides of accordion-like fodable polyptychs. The portraits, measuring two meters, almost chromatique, will invade the viewer’s visual field, confronting him with the power of the glances, and the fascinating and moving sensations that the colors provide.

The movie will tell the artist's astounding journeys in the remote countries of our world, and the human adventure of the days spent with the ethnic groups.

The challenge of Memory of Colors is to highlight these people, threatened with extinction. It’s a call for respect and protection for human communities. By protecting them, it is our history that we preserve.