Conquistador

Nicolas Savary, a Swiss photographer, fortuitously came into possession of the archive as part of a research project during an artistic residency in South America in 2014. This photobook works as a catalogue of a big exhibition at the Musee de l'Elysee and Musee Gruerien, both in Switzerland. The book include reprints and facsimiles of archive images and original documents as well as ethnographic and heritage objects. The photographs are the work, on the one hand, of Louis de Boccard and other Swiss photographer living in Argentina a the same time like Samuel Rimathe and on the other of Nicolas Savary. Savary proposes a contemporary approach with reference to the archive. Examination of the documents reveals that certain themes are linked to contemporary issues like ecology and the tourist industry, urban development and the situation of indigenous people.