Lost in the Amazon
In the book Aya, Yann Gross and Arguiñe Escandón take the viewer on an immersive journey in the Peruvian Amazon, combining present and past through the archive of a vanished photographer.
By Gaia Squarci. Photographs by Yann Gross, Arguiñe Escandón, and Charles Kroehle.
Charles Kroehle was a German photographer active at the end of the 19th century, regarded as a pioneer for his journeys into remote rainforest regions to photograph Indigenous communities. His portraits, while sometimes striking in their intensity, are also marked by a taxonomic impulse and a romanticized vision. Kroehle later disappeared under unclear circumstances in the Amazon, leaving behind a trail of mystery and speculation.
Also foreigners to the territory, Gross and Escandón approach it with a different awareness. Rather than imposing a unilateral, outsider’s gaze, their work seeks participation and exchange. Their photographs explore the tension between human presence and nature: daily life within an ecosystem local populations are fighting to protect, shamanic experiences, and phenomena that elude human control.
In Quichua, “Aya” refers to a ghost, soul, or spirit. Sociologist Joel Vacheron describes the book as “an experiential initiation through plants, signs, and spirits that permeate the Amazonian jungle.” Engaging with anthropologist Eduardo Kohn’s idea that “we are not the only ‘we,’” the project can be read as an inquiry that reconsiders the human through relationships with forces and forms of life that extend beyond it.
The first reprint of the book Aya is published by Editorial RM and available at the price of 100 Euro.
