Jorge Concha | Analogue Photography & Visual Art

Matarredonda

Presented at: CORDILLERA – ARTIVISTAS Gallery – Paris, 2026; REMEMBERING THERE – Expressions and Memories of Colonized Territories, Louis Delgrès Cultural Center, Nantes, 2024; and RESTITUTION – Queer Archives and Memories, LELAC à l’Épaule residency, 2023.

Matarredonda is a photographic project developed over several years in a high-altitude páramo, a unique Andean ecosystem essential to Bogotá’s water supply.
The landscape remained largely isolated and preserved, paradoxically because of the fear surrounding it. Located in a territory deeply affected by armed conflict, the páramo became a strategic site of control and violence. Its inaccessibility and lack of human settlement helped protect an ecosystem that might otherwise have been further exploited.

Alex, or the Proximity of Nobility 1
Silver gelatin photograph on ILFORD FC MATT paper
40 cm × 60 cm
Photographed in 2013, printed in 2026

Alex, or the Proximity of Nobility 2
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
40 cm × 26 cm
Photographed in 2013, printed in 2024

The territory also bears a deeper colonial history. During the colonial period, Spanish authorities built the first roads connecting Bogotá with the eastern plains and Venezuela through the forced labor of enslaved African and Indigenous people. Some of these paths still cross the mountains today, cutting through the landscape like visible scars. They form the setting for several photographs in the series.
In this landscape marked by violence, colonial history, and religious belief, I photographed different men—queer, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual—brought together by a desire for moments of freedom, nudity, and direct contact with nature. Their bodies enter a broader narrative about Colombia and its layers of violence, silence, desire, and taboo.

Naked Saint Francis on the Mountain 1
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
30 cm × 30 cm
Photographed in 2019, printed in 2024

Naked Saint Francis on the Mountain 2
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
30 cm × 30 cm
Photographed in 2019, printed in 2024

Matarredonda can be understood as a catharsis: an attempt to reconnect a traumatized territory with bodies that have themselves been subjected to repression. Nudity is not presented as provocation, but as a way of inhabiting the mountain again and crossing the boundary between prohibition and intimacy, inherited fear and the possibility of freedom.
The project explores the male body as a political and vulnerable space, the coexistence of violent memory and the majesty of the Andes, the colonial traces inscribed in the landscape, and the emergence of Andean queer narratives that remain largely invisible.

Let’s Play a Game of… 1
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
50 cm × 50 cm
Photographed in 2020, printed in 2024

Let’s Play a Game of… 2
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
30 cm × 30 cm
Photographed in 2020, printed in 2024

The MATARREDONDA páramo lies in what, during my childhood and adolescence in the 1980s and 1990s, was commonly called a corridor of violence. It was an inhospitable, forbidden place on the road connecting Bogotá with the small town of Choachí. The media frequently reported clashes there between guerrillas, the army, and paramilitary groups. According to them and to Bogotá residents at the time, the area was a strategic position from which the seat of government could be attacked and people kidnapped in Bogotá could easily be taken into the impenetrable jungle of Colombia’s eastern plains.

Cyanotype 1
Cyanotype on cotton paper
A4
2024

Cyanotype 2
Cyanotype on cotton paper
A4
2024

Bogotá residents were afraid to leave the city and take this road: no one took the risk; no one bought, cultivated, built, or developed there. Choachí remained isolated despite its proximity to the capital, and the mountain was ironically preserved at a time when local legislation and education were insufficient to protect nature.
MATARREDONDA allowed me to understand that I had grown up in a war without realizing it. Familiarity with that reality may have made it seem normal. It was not only the country’s violent political war, but also the social war that accepting my homosexuality represented for me within a traditional, macho, and religious society.

Jorge, the Pleasure of Being Naked 1
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
50 cm × 50 cm
Photographed in 2013, printed in 2024

There, at MATARREDONDA, I allowed myself to truly lose my fears. Each time I climbed these mountains and claimed this vast territory, I could be free. There I embraced my fascination with the male body as a legitimate and essential part of my personal and artistic development. There I truly found myself as a queer person, a gay man, and an artist—I had already come out, but I was not truly free.
MATARREDONDA helped me understand that there was no reason to confine or judge desire while photographing. It was an opportunity to take a risk and invite others to be completely honest before me, because in nudity one cannot lie or hide anything.

On the Mountain 1
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
30 cm × 30 cm
Photographed in 2022, printed in 2024

On the Mountain 2
Silver gelatin print on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
30 cm × 30 cm
Photographed in 2022, printed in 2024

MATARREDONDA questioned the rarity of nudity in Colombian society, which, although it declares itself “secular,” preserves old religious values throughout its customs.

Oscar 1

Oscar 2

Oscar 3

Silver gelatin prints on Ilford RC paper, made from expired film
20 cm × 20 cm
Photographed in 2017, printed in 2024
MATARREDONDA allowed me to understand that I could become the link between a person and that intimate moment of freedom.

Thanks to LAC À L’ÉPAULE, the Nantes School of Fine Arts, and Atelier Nantes, I was able to devote several months to reflection, understanding, and extensive darkroom work.

Oscar 1

Oscar 2

Oscar 3

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