That Souvenir Andean Rug of Yours? Woven by a Prisoner in Peru, Probably
Kike Arnal documents the skills, self-improvement and family-bonds of craftsmen inside a Cuzco jail
In June 2013, The United Nations’ World Bank assigned Kike Arnal to photograph the daily life of prisoners in the low security prison of Quencoro in Cuzco, Peru.
Quencoro is one of the largest prisons in Peru and houses mostly indigenous people, mostly of Inca origins. The conditions at Quencoro are not too different than those in most of Latin American prisons: overcrowded cells, poor sanitary standards and a scarcity of resources among other problems.
Quencoro prisoners craft excellent quality textiles, furniture, string instruments and other handcrafts which are sold by friends, family and third parties at traditional markets.
The income generated by sales of rugs, carvings and the like at traditional markets is used to buy more materials, to buy food for themselves and to support their families outside. This practical approach to skills training, self-responsibility, and re-entry is considered valuable and replicable.
The World Bank/United Nations wanted to loan resources to the Peruvian government in order to improve educational programs among the prisoners in Quencoro and to also expand similar programs to prisons elsewhere in the country.
In order to construct solid proposals and describe the situation, the UN needed documentary images of life inside Quencoro for its 1,800 prisoners. That’s where Arnal came in.
He had virtually no track record of photographing in prisons but the assignment opened Arnal’s eyes and heart. Scroll down for our conversation.
Q & A
Prison Photography (PP): What were your impression of, or knowledge of Peru’s prisons before this assignment with the World Bank?
Kike Arnal (KA): I didn’t know anything. I imagined they were about the same as in most prisons in Latin America, where most prisons are associated with disrespect of human rights and with abuses.
PP: That’s a broad assertion.
KA: Yes, but if you read the available information about the continent’s prisons, the conditions inside prisons of countries like Brazil, Colombia, or even worst than those, in Venezuela, are pretty inhuman. The unfortunate generalization is that in most prisons, there’s corruption on the police side, controlling what gets in and out of prison. Prisoners are abused either by the guards or by a power system handled by the prisoners themselves that controls the commerce or liberties inside the prisons. This situation generates uprisings, hostage been taken, prisoners and guards been killed and even more human violations and abuses [have occurred].
PP: Before visiting Quencoro Prison, what photographs had you seen of Peruvian or Latin American prisons?
KA: None from Peru’s prisons except for the photo of Abimael Guzman, Reynoso, former leader of Shining Path when he has exhibited inside a cage as a trophy by former president Alberto Fujimori.
PP: A truly bizarre press event. And we must not also overlook the fact that Fujimori is himself now in prison for human rights abuses.
PP: What sort of images did you want to make?
KA: I wanted to document the hardships and (if there was any to see) the positive aspects of prison life. To tell the story of the daily lives in a prison on the Altiplano of Peru. I did not anticipate what I was going to find at all, but once I was inside I was inspired by what I saw.
PP: How so?
KA: 800 prisoners and the large majority of them are hard working — REALLY HARD WORKING GUYS!
PP: Tell us about their average work day.
KA: Guys worked many hours a day creating handcrafts to be sold outside of the prison. Quencoro is well know for this. They make tons of handcrafts sold in traditional markets in Cuzco and other touristic locations around Peru. But you’d never know that the textile or carvings you bought were made by prisoners paying for a crime.
PP: And these activities also support the families of the prisoners, correct?
KA: The money they make first will go to pay for the material they need to make the handcrafts, then toward their food inside the prison, then to by any privilege they want while paying their sentence, and then to help and feed their families outside. This order of things is quintessential. Some of the guys I met would work as long as 12–15 hour a day.
KA: There were prisoners that didn’t work, but my feeling is that they were a small minority. Most of the people I met were dedicated. Many of them were learning new techniques — carpentry, textile-making with looms, instrument manufacture. They know that this is an opportunity for them to change their future.
PP: Do any of them make a nice amount of money?
KA: No, they don’t make a lot really.
PP: How to they source materials to make the crafts? Legitimately or non-legitimately?
KA: The prison has a system that allows the inmate to get the material legally, but the materials are not cheap and they get paid little for what they produce.
PP: The profit margins seem slim.
KA: There may be some sort of exploitation here, because they can’t really negotiate that well being in prison. A few products, such as music instruments, are sold for higher prices. I believe Quencoro prison charges a tax to the final products (I need to check that; I can’t be certain). Mostly, it is not an amazing business. On the other hand, what can they do while they are in prison and their family need support?
PP: Why did the World Bank want to support or extend this program?
KA: They wanted to implement an education program in the prison that will help prisoners to learn and diversify their production. In order to do that, they needed to document the situation inside Quencoro and they wanted it done in a realistic way.
PP: How did you get the gig?
KA: The person pushing for the implementation of this program had seen some of my work from the infamous Oak Hill.
PP: Oak Hill?
KA: Oak Hill was a juvenile detention center in Maryland for kids from Washington D.C. For decades, Oak Hill had a pretty bad record for human right abuses. Finally and after a lot of pressure, in 2009, it was shut down.
KA: I was working on a project documenting Washington D.C. beyond its monuments. I gave a couple photography workshops to the young Oak Hill prisoners. In exchange, I was allowed to photographed inside.
PP: I’d love to see those images that the kids made. Something for another time!
KA: I saw very young people living in terrible circumstances. One African-American child I saw, aged 13, was kept in a cold solitary cell — definitively a place that wouldn’t help any child to solve any of behavior issues. Oak Hill was like one of those intimidating prisons in the movies, surrounded by barbwires, chilling cells, dimly-lit communal areas. I can only imagine that children who spent time in Oak Hill are carrying a sentenced forever, even after leaving the prison. It scarred.
PP: Did your images help the World Bank?
KA: They used my images in their official proposal to the Peru prison system. As far as I understand, The World Bank was able to start the education programs in Quencoro prison and in other prisons too. So that’s a yes!
PP: And did the images help you?
KA: I learned how different can people from the Andes high plateau (the Altiplano) are from others on the continent, especially from people in countries such as Venezuela which has many aspects of Caribbean culture. I was touched by the situations some indigenous prisoners were going through. Inside a prison, human relations are catalyzed and you get to an intimate understanding more quickly. Many of the prisoners got close to me, some of them maybe looking for help with their cases or because I was someone “fresh” to them. I talked to few people that insisted they were put in prison for no reason. There is definitively a lot of anxiety and pain inside a prison.
KA: Most of Quencoro prisoners are of indigenous origins, specifically Quechua people from the Andean villages close to Cuzco, the tourist capital of Peru. This a low security prison. Although there is a wing for though guys, most prisoners are not hardcore criminals and are not serving long sentences.
PP: Were the prisoners settled or content? Did the work give them a positive outlook?
KA: I met many young men in Quencoro that ended up there accused and sentenced for rape. Apparently, a lot of them were brought to justice by the parents of their girlfriends who did not like the young man and denounced him to the police, saying that he raped their daughter. They used the criminal justice system as a resource to break up their daughter’s relationship. This is, apparently, common. The confounding thing is that those girlfriends visit them in prison on the weekends and end up forming families.
PP: If it is as you tell it, it seems strange and complex. Difficult for us as outsiders to pick apart or to know exactly what’s happening.
KA: Yes, it is very difficult for us to understand what going on inside Quencoro. I agree
KA: It is not that I have spent much time visiting prisons, but I once I visited a high security prison in Venezuela were prisoners didn’t do much, and by comparison I can tell that prisoners in Quencoro are kept very active and the ambience is less tense and breathable. It feels like there is hope for these guys and they know it.
KA: These guys work hard to make ends meet, they produce money and they keep talking about what they are going to do when they leave prison. Apparently, many of them continue working on the making of handcrafts after they get out. That is why the education programs the World Bank propose are so important.
PP: What were the takeaways for you?
KA: I have to admit that I was hired because of my background and my portfolio. But, as soon as I set a foot in the prison I became absolutely fascinated with the situation I was presented with. It was a great opportunity for me to immersed in indigenous Andean culture, and in a very strange way, in a prison. Overall, the experience was very positive; I am very privileged to be part of it.
PP: Thanks, Kike
KA: Thank you, Pete
Kike Arnal
Kike Arnal is a photographer and videographer based in Oakland, California. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Life and Mother Jones among others. Arnal directed and produced several documentaries, including a short film for Discovery Channel Canada about a malaria epidemic among indigenous people in a remote area of the northern Amazon.
Arnal’s solo photography exhibit about the impact of cluster bombs on civilians showed at the United Nations in New York City and in Geneva, Switzerland. He has published three documentary photo books. In The Shadow of Power (Edizioni Charta, 2010) about poverty and wealth discrepancy in Washington D.C.; Voladores [“The Flyers”] (Editorial Meristemo, 2014) about pre-Hispanic indigenous ritual dance in Mexico; and Bordered Lives (The New Press, 2015) about transgender culture in Mexico City.
