Federico Estol
URUGUAY
Instagram @federicoestol
Federico Estol is an uruguayan photographer and artivist based in Montevideo. He currently works as a visual storyteller producing stories in Latin America, his long-term projects are focused in the relationship between cultural identity, inequality and social healing. Also is the artistic director of San José Foto Festival and editor of El Ministerio Ediciones photobook publishing house.
• SERIES •
Shine Heroes
There are 3000 shoe shiners who go out into the streets of La Paz and El Alto suburbs each day in search of clients. They are from all ages and in recent years have become a social phenomenon in the Bolivian capital.
What characterizes this tribe is the use of ski masks so they will not be recognized by those around them. They confront the discrimination they face through these masks; in their neighbourhoods no one knows that they work as shoe shiners, at school they hide this fact, and even their own families believe they have a different job when they head down to the center of the city from El Alto.
