Interview • 013 PH

Lucía Lacurcia

Montevideo, Uruguay

Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?

My name is Lucía Lacurcia. I’m a Uruguayan-Venezuelan journalist and photographer currently living in Montevideo. I have lived a third of my life here, another third in Caracas (Venezuela), and another one in Barcelona (Spain), so I don't really know where I'm from I suppose.

Maybe because of the feeling of being uprooted, taking pictures is the way of linking myself to the environment, of appropriating it. 

What is your relationship with photography? How did you get into it and what keeps you interested or motivated?

When I was a teenager my family bought a photo shop with a ‹Kodak Minilab› and cheap rolls. I started taking lot of pictures. A few years later I came in first contact with a dark room, slightly later I bought my own enlarger—it was huge. I don’t remember what became of it. 

Then I lived in Caracas and I wanted to be a filmmaker and photographer. But I ended up being a journalist. I worked for years as a reporter and when I was 30 I went to Barcelona to study a master degree in political science.

I stayed there for a decade and I worked in everything: I laid philosophy books, managed the clientele of a Pilates VIP Center, worked with a woman who sold pillows and made desserts for restaurants. 

In Barcelona I made my first exhibition—and the only one.  

Six years ago I went back to Uruguay and I’ve returned to work as a journalist. During all these years I took pictures that recorded my changes and my permanencies, my adventures and daily life, moving, traveling, friends, places, objects, my child. And all around, the vision and the state of the soul that emanates from light, framing and click decision. 

What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?

Right now I work especially with urban landscapes and street photos. Although I’m interested in all media and formats, since last year I’ve been focusing on mobile phone pictures, which bring a particular versatility and lightness to the fact that I'm touring the city taking pictures without being noticed. 

When I take a picture, either from a place, an object or a person, I feel it is given some kind of new dignity. Somehow, the picture extracts the soul out of the photographed, which is reflected in the image. I love walking aimlessly around to discover places, facades, textures, people, lights. It's the way I feel more with myself.

Thank you, Lucía!

Editorial Notes:

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Photography: Lucía Lacurcia (2018)
Location: Montevideo, Uruguay

Links: Instagram

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