Monty Kaplan - Paraíso

In early 2022, the Province of Corrientes suffered a terrible epidemic of forest fires that consumed more than 800,000 hectares, including the area of the Esteros del Iberá. This project really began with a sense of estrangement that I felt when I saw this story of something that was happening so close by but felt so foreign. Incited by curiosity, I decided to travel to the city of San Miguel, which had been one of the most affected by the incident in the province, to investigate in depth what had happened and to get to know the place and the people who lived there. To my surprise, once there I found a very particular scene. The volunteer fire station, although well intentioned, was a disorganised and extremely precarious place, without any preparation for an event of this magnitude. The geographical location of the sawmill placed it only metres away from the fuel station, which would have resulted in the destruction of the town if it had been hit by the fires. All the inhabitants had different and extremely opposing theories as to what had caused the epidemic. There were conspiracy theories about Douglas Tompkins, corruption in the town hall, and the burning of the land to receive money from insurance companies, among many others. However, hardly anyone was willing to admit the possibility that negligence in the practice of burning rubbish near grasslands might indeed have been the most likely cause. Feeling genuinely overwhelmed by the whole experience, I decided that the fires were just a trigger to tell something else. I focused on the sensation of inhabiting that space and generated an x-ray of what it was like to be there, in a place where something like this could happen. A territory where divine faith surpasses reason and the law of man rules, leaving the flora and fauna as collateral damage. Text: Monty Kaplan Voice: Darrell Robinson (AI) + info www.audiotecafotografica.com