"I sometimes imagine Caracas as a living, breathing animal. Obscured by the darkness, it appears both violent and sensual, but perhaps its true nature will only be revealed at the moment it devours me."
The word capitolio refers to the domed building that houses a government. Here, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, is itself a metaphorical capitolio building. The decaying Modernist architecture, with a jungle growing through the cracks, becomes the walls of this building, and the violent streets become the corridors where the human drama plays itself out in what President Hugo Chavez called a "revolution."
The idea of nationalism in Mexico has historically been centered on the Spanish immigrants and the native Indian tribes. The contributions of the "third root"—the black communities in Mexico—have remained largely ignored. In the early 1990s, photographer Maya Goded made a thorough journey to the coasts of Guerrero and Oaxaca, registering with her camera the daily life of the third root. The photographs in this, her first book, validate themselves without long explanations: Loving and brutal yet decidedly sincere, the images succeed not only in telling the photojournalistic story but also in achieving artistic expression. Immersed in the richness of the society she observes, Goded has bestowed a personal and intimate offering to the national dialogue of Mexico and what it means to be Mexican today.