Perro Callejero (Stray Dog)

Perro Callejero is a documentary photography work made on the streets of Bogotá during the 2000s and 2010s, a time when the large population of stray dogs was a public health problem for the city.

I took up this photographic and documentary subject for several reasons. The most important was my fear of dogs, although at the same time I felt a certain sympathy for them. Photography became a means of catharsis to overcome my fears.

Originally, the project set out to capture the daily life of these dogs: their struggle to survive, their search for food and a home. The work later evolved into a second phase. After selecting certain individuals photographed in the city, I returned to the places where I had found them and installed life-size photographs of the documented dogs, creating a “presence-absence” of the individual. This second phase aimed to give the dogs back their dignity, returning them to the context where they were first found to emphasise their relationship with their surroundings.

This collection of photographs later became my first solo exhibition, held in the exhibition corridor of the Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Theatre in Bogotá.