Luis Alberto Rodriguez
Protecting Young Refugees from Violence / Tenosique and Tapachula, Mexico
In the north of Central America, violence exists because of socio-economic conditions, gangs and other organised crime. They are the main drivers of forced displacement in the region. In the first half of 2019, asylum applications in Mexico increased by 204% compared to the same period in 2018. Most people arrived from Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala and Nicaragua, with growing numbers from Africa and Asia. The complex situation has transformed parts of Central America into very dangerous places.
Through the Sport for Protection project launched in 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in partnership with the Olympic Refuge Foundation (ORF), aims to harness the power of sport to better protect young refugees and other displaced people to help them heal, grow and thrive. Organised sport and other recreational activities create spaces where refugees can feel safe and forge ties with locals, which reduces the risk factors that lead to further violence, exploitation and neglect.
photo Gallery
2019 – IOC / Luis Alberto Rodriguez - All Rights Reserved
BIOGRAPHY
Luis Alberto Rodriguez is a first-generation New Yorker born to Dominican parents. He uses his background as a former dancer to inform his choices as a photographer. His works place the body in direct dialogue with natural materials, haunting the viewer with the recognisable turned unrecognisable. His photographs feature poetic shapes and contorted bodies. The photographer highlights, in an almost animalistic way, how movement carries meaning.
He won the Prix du Public at Hyères Photography Festival in 2017, was named One To Watch by the British Journal of Photography in 2019, was shortlisted for the New Vanguard Photography Prize in 2018, and was featured in the Labs New Artists for Red Hook Labs in Brooklyn in 2018. His first solo exhibition entitled The People of the Mud was launched at PhotoIreland in 2019 and is the result of a residency at Cow House Studios in Wexford, Ireland.
