Jorge Panchoaga's metaphorical images develop an interest in the way memory combines in its narrative an indistinguishable correlation between reality and imagination, configuring an important part of the way we make sense of reality and the ecosystems we inhabit.
Panchoaga was born in Popayán, Colombia (1984). He studied anthropology and carried out his first photographic project La Casa Grande based on his family history and the way in which the territory is essential to configure identity and give meaning to the resistance that is exercised in daily life in the indigenous peoples of Cauca, where his family comes from. Later, he broadened his interest in spaces where memory has been fractured by violent events, emphasizing how people have built an intimate relationship with aquatic ecosystems in his work Dulce y Salada. In recent years, Jorge has focused efforts on generating pedagogical processes on image in Afro-descendant communities through oral memory and imagination, he has also investigated the processes of resistance and emancipation in his Kalabongó project.
Panchoaga has obtained scholarships from SMArt Sustainable Mountain, Switzerland: Ministry of Culture of Colombia. He has received different distinctions in various categories from Poy Latam in the years 2017 (1) and 2019 (4); winner of the Emerging Talent Award from Lens Culture 2016; l NEXOFOTO Ibero-American Photography Award, Spain; the IX National Colombo Swiss Photography Award from the Ministry of Culture. His cinematographic work has been awarded at Bogoshorts 2021 in the category for best cinematography and best experimental short. His work includes clients such as the New York Times, El País from Spain, Süddeutsche Zeitun from Germany.
Currently, he is an explorer for the National Geographic Society and develops themes related to memory in high mountain areas; he in turn independently develops a long-term project on drug policies implemented in Latin America through the reconstruction of silenced memories and local and popular culture that has resisted, transformed or adapted to illegal economies.
He is co-author of the book OMEN, Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration (2021) Ft Leon Muñoz Santini and Fiestas de San Pacho (2014), author of Casi café (2015), Savage (2018), Dulce y Salada (2019), director of the multiplatform project Dulce y Salada (2019). He is the founder of CROMA Taller Visual, and cofounder of Visual is Telling VIST and is Fujifilm's X photographer.
