Silvina Frydlewsky
Silvina Frydlewsky (Argentina)
Silvina Frydlewsky is a photographer, photojournalist and photographic editor. As a photojournalist she has worked for El Pais, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, The New York Times and Time Magazine, among others. After moving back to Buenos Aires from Madrid in 2000 she worked as photography editor of Torneos y Competencias Group. She currently correspondent for The Washington Post in South America and works in the press office of the Ministry of Culture of the Argentina.
Silvina is at once an insider and outsider, an observer and a critic and her images reveal a cross-section of Argentina social, political cultural and religion life. Her recent project, entitled "The Last Jewish Gaucho", is a photographic documentation of the life of the late Jaime Jruz who worked the land in his Entre Rios village, a community founded by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the 1890s.
A Lens on Global Argentina
As a photojournalist and citizen, Silvina Frydlewsky is at once an insider and outsider, an observer and a critic. The images reveal a cross-section of Argentina today, embedding the viewer in a dynamic and complex people and culture. In the shantytowns of Buenos Aires, known in Spanish as the villa miseria—literally "village of misery," nearly a quarter of a million people live literally and figuratively on the edge, without jobs, sanitation, or paved streets.
North of the Buenos Aires, in the Pampas, Frydlewsky documents villages of Jewish gauchos. In Entre Rios province, the center of Argentina’s rural Jewish communities, there are still gauchos, Hebrew lessons and sacred scrolls to be found. Now, only a dwindling number of their descendants remain, but they’re intent on saving the Jewish culture that flourished for decades.
A Night in Buenos Aires
The exhibition opening offered audience a cultural experience that combined photography with dance and cuisine. The exhibition included 5 photographic 'suites' of Frydlewsky's photographs of Argentinian life. Attendees where given the opportunity to further engage with the exhibit by curating their own 'suites' and storyline from postcard size photographs.
The dance program included a performance of the Argentinian tango by the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. Two dance couples showcased select styles of the Argentinian Tango followed by a 'basics in tango steps' workshops for any willing attendees.
