Kadir van Lohuizen
"VÍA PANAM"

Exhibition: 25th September to the 14th of December, 2014
Opening: Thursday 25th September, 18h30 at the Pomhouse

Why do people migrate? Where to and for what reasons? What is the fate of the different indigenous populations in the Americas? In Vía PanAm, photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen investigates the roots of migration in the Americas, a phenomenon that is as old as humanity but is increasingly portrayed as a new threat to the Western world.

From the 25th of September to the 14 December 2014, the Centre National de l’Audiovisuel (CNA) will host the exhibition Vía PanAm by Kadir van Lohuizen. Vía PanAm follows Van Lohuizen’s footsteps from the very south of Chile to the northernmost point of Alaska. Traveling almost 40.000km along the Pan-American Highway and crossing through 15 countries, he visualized the stories of the communities, regions and societies he encountered. The result is a unique collection of stories about migration in the Americas.

Characteristic for his committed stance as a photographer, Van Lohuizen portrays the lives of several migrants in the Americas. For instance Peruvian women working in Chilean households and fortune seekers working in illegal gold mines in Peru, but also Iraqi refugees in the United States trying to build a new life and workers in the oil industry in Alaska’s brutal climate. Van Lohuizen’s work reflects the complexity of migration in both a historical and contemporary context.

Multimedia storytelling
Vía PanAm engages the audience through a variety of platforms. In 2011 and 2012, Van Lohuizen’s travels were broadcasted live through various channels ranging from traditional to new media. Fundamental to this project, which is produced by Paradox, is an exploration of new ways of storytelling and outreach. Given the reduced space for long-term journalistic projects in traditional media, researching alternative platforms and funding became a necessity. With this in mind, Paradox and Kadir van Lohuizen together with programmers Antenna-Men created the Vía PanAm iPad app (available in the App Store). With this innovative app, Van Lohuizen kept his followers updated about his travels with blogs, image reports and road videos. In addition, the stories were edited into weekly radio broadcasts, biweekly newspaper columns and regular magazine publications.

The exhibition
The Vía PanAm exhibition, designed by Jeroen de Vries, is a combination of an audiovisual installation and a series of large prints plus iPads showing the app. Together they form an immersive spatial installation, highlighting a selection of stories. The Vía PanAm exhibition takes the viewer along the changing landscapes of the countries Van Lohuizen traveled and zooms in on the lives of the people he encountered.

Parallels between "The Bitter Years" and "Vía PanAm"
One of the images featured in the exhibition "Vía PanAm" – The Pursuit of Happiness depicts a road heading into the unknown. Its composition and subject are undeniably reminiscent of the legendary photograph by Dorothea Lange entitled Route 54, north of El Paso, Texas, June 1938, one of the iconic images of the collection "The Bitter Years", on display in the Water Tower. The acclaimed FSA project, which gave rise to the collection "The Bitter Years", addressed themes such as the search for a better future and the challenges of migration with an often uncertain outcome, the myth of the road and, more generally, the issues surrounding the human condition. Now, these same themes have been reinterpreted by Kadir van Lohuizen and feature prominently in his masterful work "Vía PanAm". The joint display of these two collections at the site of the Waassertuerm+Pomhouse, as well as the exhibition space Display01, is an opportunity to compare historic and contemporary visions face to face, to create debate and to provide education on a subject that remains a timely topic. The "Bitter Years" uncovered a defining period in the history of the United States, while also raising issues of history repeating itself. The stories collected in "Vía PanAm" reveal that, over the years, the reasons for migrating often remain the same.

The book
Complementary to this traveling exhibition and the innovative iPad app, Van Lohuizen’s work has been compiled into a photo book, featuring an essay by acclaimed Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez. In an inventive design by Heijdens Karwei, mixing color, black and white images and texts on pages of different sizes, the Vía PanAm book provides a unique, high-quality closure to Van Lohuizen's project. Via PanAm | Kadir van Lohuizen | With an essay by Juan Gabriel Vásquez | Design: Heijdens Karwei | ENG, ES | Paradox / YdocPublishing | ISBN 978-90-818876-1-8 | Price standard € 49.50, signed € 59.50, special edition with print € 195. Order online: www.ydocstore.org/viapanam

About Kadir van Lohuizen
As a photojournalist, Kadir van Lohuizen (The Netherlands, 1963) focuses on long-term projects about disregarded or perhaps forgotten themes and events. He has covered conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, but is probably best known for his projects on the seven rivers of the world (Aderen/Rivers of the World), and the diamond industry (Diamond Matters). Van Lohuizen has received numerous prizes for his work, including two World Press Photo awards. His work has been exhibited in Foam (Amsterdam), Institut Néerlandais (Paris), Nederlands Fotomuseum (Rotterdam) et. al. Kadir van Lohuizen is co-founder and member of photographers agency NOOR.

Paradox
Vía PanAm is a Paradox production. Paradox creates independent projects in photography, video and media related arts exploring contemporary issues in close collaboration with documentary photographers, curators and designers. More Information: www.paradox.nl