"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."
Peuples d'en haut is John Vink's account of people with strong cultural identities living in the rough terrain and protective isolation of the mountains. This work, executed between 1991 and 2000, depicts the life of a Hmong community in Laos, a Mam Indian community in Guatemala, and a Svan village in the Georgian Caucasus.