invited guest: Jan Sochor - Jesus Combat

A slum called Calvario shows everydays effort made to survive in a ghetto.

Collecting rubbish, get high by sniffing glue and watch out for not to get shot dead by El Sheriff, who is „Mano Negra“ (The Black Hand), an illegal authority who has control over the ghetto.

Theft, drug abuse, being out of work never let these people jump off the ghetto misery and stop being a second category citizen in the rigid catholic society of Colombia.

Although missionary organizations help, in the name of Jesus Crist of course, to survive to the ghetto dwellers, there seemed to be no hope for the future.

Jan Sochor was born in the Czech Republic. He is changing his base between South America and Europe frequently, he lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain, the Czech Republic in the last five years. America has become a major theme for him since then. He focuses on showing and documenting the (Latin) American continent, the everyday life, social and cultural issues mostly. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous Czech magazines, newspapers and publications, including Reflex, National Geographic CZ, Instinkt, Hospodarske noviny. In 2006 he participated in the Czech Press Photo group exhibition.

Photostory from Cali (Colombia) © by Jan Sochor.

Other projects and more pictures of Jan you may find at his web site>

Invited by Marcin Górski