Claudia Andujar (born June 12, 1931) is a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

-born Brazilian photographer and activist.

Life

The daughter of a Hungarian Jewish father and a

mother, she was born Claudine Haas in

Neuchâtel , neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier , twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...

, Switzerland. She grew up in the city of

Oradea Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...

, which changed hands between the kingdoms of Hungary and Romania. Towards the end of World War II, she and her mother took refuge in Switzerland. Her father died in the

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

, and the rest of her father's family died either at Dachau or

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. She studied humanities at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

in New York City. There she met a Spanish refugee, Julio Andujar, whom she married in 1949 and whose last name she still maintains. Andujar moved to Brazil in 1956 to stay with her mother, Germaine Guye Haas. A project on the Karajá people in central Brazil led her to a career in

photojournalism Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

. Her work has appeared in various magazines, including '' Life'', ''

Look To look is to use sight to perceive an object. Look or The Look may refer to: Businesses and products * Look (modeling agency), an Israeli modeling agency * ''Look'' (American magazine), a defunct general-interest magazine * ''Look'' (UK ma ...

'', '' Fortune'', '' Aperture'', ''

Realidade ''Realidade'' (''Reality'') was a Brazilian magazine published by Editora Abril between 1966 and 1976. It was considered a mark in Brazilian journalism at the time, presenting in-depth stories, first-person reporting and nontraditional graphic des ...

'' and '' Claudia''. She has documented the culture of the Yanomami people over the years, including a book ''Yanomami: The House, The Forest, The Invisible'' published in 1998. The Yanomami had had little contact with the outside world. When a highway project through their territory led to a disastrous outbreak of

measles Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...

, she suspended her photographic work to help bring medical aid to them. In 1977, Brazil’s military regime expelled her from the region after she denounced the appropriation of indigenous lands by settlers. During the 1980s, an influx of illegal gold miners into this region led to more health problems, including an outbreak of malaria and

mercury poisoning Mercury poisoning is a type of metal poisoning due to exposure to mercury. Symptoms depend upon the type, dose, method, and duration of exposure. They may include muscle weakness, poor coordination, numbness in the hands and feet, skin rashe ...

. Twenty per cent of the Yanomami population died as a result. Andujar played an important role in establishing the Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park which led to the Brazilian government establishing a 96,000 km² protected area for use by the Yanomami. Her work was supported by

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s in 1971 and 1977. Andujar's photographs are included in the collections of various museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Eastman House in Rochester, New York. A gallery of the Inhotim museum in Brumadinho was built to display her work. Andujar received a Cultural Freedom Prize in 2000 for her work in portraying and aiding the Yanomani people. In 2008, she was named to the Brazilian Ordem do Mérito Cultural. In 2018, she received a Goethe Medal for her groundbreaking work with the Yanomami.

References

External links

Claudia Andujar
at Museum of Modern Art. * Gerhard Bissell
''Andujar, Claudia''
in: '' Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (Artists of the World)'', Suppl. I, Saur, Munich 2005, from p. 349 (in German). {{DEFAULTSORT:Andujar, Claudia 1931 births Living people Brazilian photographers Brazilian women photographers Hunter College alumni Brazilian activists Brazilian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Swiss people of Hungarian descent Swiss people of Jewish descent Swiss emigrants to Brazil

Life

References

Further reading

External links