CONDOR is a tribute to the victims of Operation Condor, a secret military plan to annihilate political opposition to military dictatorships in South America during the 1970s. The regime's effort to silence their own citizens resulted in an estimated 60,000 victims. João Pina spent nine years tracing Condor’s shadows, producing a body of work to show what is left from the dirty war years.
Note: The lecture will be followed by a book signing in the gallery.
João Pina was born to a very political family in Lisbon in 1980, when Portuguese democracy was still young. He started working as a photographer at the age of 18. He earned a degree in marketing administration and later graduated from ICP’s Photojournalism and Documentary Photography program.
Passionate about the world, he has focused on under-reported stories for the past 16 years. He has been based mostly in Latin America for the past decade, focusing largely on long-term projects about political transitions and human rights violations.
In 2007, along with Rui Daniel Galiza, he published his first book, Por teu livre pensamento, which features the stories of 25 former Portuguese political prisoners. The work inspired an Amnesty International advertising campaign that received a Lion d’Or award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2011.
In 2014, he finished his longest personal project and published his second book, Condor, which shows the remnants of Operation Condor, a coordination between South American military dictatorships to destroy political opposition during the 1970s.
He has received the Moving Walls 21 (2014), SPA Award (2012), Estação Imagem Grant (2010), and PDN Photo Annual (2010), among other recognitions. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Stern, GEO, El Pais Semanal, La Vanguardia Magazine, D Magazine, Io Donna, Days Japan, Expresso, and Visão, among other publications. His work has been exhibited museums and galleries around the world.