¿Una imagen y nada más?: Chambi, Testino, Vargas Llosa y el mito de lo andino

Throughout the years the widespread myth of the Andean man as an abject or servile subject has expressed itself in Peru through a variety of semiotic practices that evidence the deep colonial wounds that remain open (and bleeding). The colonial shadow raises as a ubiquitous presence around which all other social processes seem to revolve. Given the dialectic between the subjects who are not acknowledged as inhabitants of a given location, who at the same time inhabit a dislocated body (in many occasions denying their indigenous ancestry), everyday interactions are schemed by a series of meetings and misunderstandings, that manifest the many different worlds that coexist in this country, at times colliding against each other and at times ignoring each other. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the new millennium -and due in great part to an economic and gastronomic boom- Peru is experiencing a revaluation of what is to be Peruvian. These new airs seem to be reforming the myth of the Andean man, freeing the significant being Peruvian from its derogatory meaning. From the depths of this intoxicating discourse, a group of Peruvian artists have -perhaps inadvertently- adhered to this narrative: even though their artistic proposals aim to be tolerant, their bodies of work end up reaffirming the myth of the Andean man. Thus, this research aims to unveil the ways in which the myth of the Andean man reinvents itself -always from the same mythological seedthrough the work of three Peruvian photographers (Martin Chambi, Mario Testino and Morgana Vargas Llosa). To demonstrate our hypothesis we’ll go beyond Barthes’ propositions on the myth, and focus on the division of the myth into the mythical and the mythological, in order to finally essay an answer based on the semiotic practices.