Contact Sheet 125: A Map of Latin American Dreams

Since 1991, Martin Weber has trekked through numerous South American countries such as Argentina, Peru, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Uruguay, as well as through the border areas of San Diego and Tijuana in order to create the black-and-white images in this issue of Contact Sheet. The idea for the series arose out of Weber’s "need to explore the field of human desires, to play out the everyday ritual of wishing, of contrasting our real state to an ideal one."

Weber asks his subjects to think about their wishes or dreams, and invites them to contemplate questions such as "What do you want to be when you grow up?" or "If you could have anything in that world, what would that be?" They relay their answers through hand-written messages on small chalkboards. These disclosed secrets and thoughts become captions for Weber’s images. Weber strongly feels that asking and reflecting on questions pertaining to what one wants or needs out of life is especially important in Latin America, a country he calls "a land of contradictions and broken dreams."