The goal of my project is to document the heart of uncontrolled violence in Honduras and the social, political factors reinforcing aggressively that growing violence. I have been working in Central America for more than five years now in the documentation of its society’s transformation and the fight for including journal nonsense about terrible policies in order to end violence.
Honduras is considered one of the most violent places in the world. In the streets of cities like San Pedro Sula or Tegucigalpa there are more murders, thefts and violence each day. The ineffective intern politics of the area is unstable, drug traffic to the USA is uncontrollable and the unsafe neighbourhoods composed by gangs and the border control by Zetas cartel is like a war.
The report of the Organization of American States points out that there are deaths every 74 minutes in Honduras, a country which is not at war. It was already named the most dangerous nation in the world in 2011 because of the 7,104 murders that were reported by the police.
It is usual in these places to train young people and even children to become hired assassins. They feel attracted to the ease to make money, which they both respect and fear. In the training procedure of these young assassins, the gauntest social classes become actual death precursors.
In a country which is not at war and people die every hour, the social portrait of Honduras is considered as the most frightening place of the world. The risen taxes after the coup d’etat in 2009 overthrew Manuel Zelaya by Roberto Micheletti. The country lives in a perpetual desperation status because of violence. 3,418 people died in 2008 according to the Honduran journal El Heraldo. Murder rates every 100,000 inhabitants was 42,1 in 1999 and is now 86, almost eight times more than what the World Health Organisation considers as epidemic. The world average is 8.8.
Javier Arcenillas would like to keep reflecting on this topic and on more detailed profiles like gender violence or intolerance against the most disadvantaged groups like homosexuals or transsexuals, which suffer from constant different violence episodes and abuse.
Humanist. Freelance photographer who is a member of Gea Photowords. He develops humanitarian essays where protagonists are integrated in societies which limit and attack every reason and right in a world that is more different every day.
He holds a Degree in Psychology from the Complutense University. He has won several international prizes. The most distinguished are the Arts Press Award, the Kodak Young Photographer, the European Social Fund Grant, the Euro Press of Fujifilm, the INJUVE, the Third Award Fotopres, the Luis Valtueña of Doctors of the World, the National Prize of Journalism Doñana, the Luis Ksado, the Make History, the UNICEF, the World Photography of the Years, the Fotoevidence, etc. He was a finalist in the Leica09 award and the Antropography 10.
He has made different photography essays about Latin America in the last few years. Among these, the most relevant are Territorios which is about marijuana traffic in Jamaica; Gladiadores, about the Olympic Boxing School in Havana; Weapon Social Club, about the obsession with guns in the USA.
His work with Doctors of the World about dump cities in Central America was a finalist in the Ojo de Pez prize and also his book City Hope which gathers his five years of work. He published a book of society portraits, a gathering of his daily activity in journals titled Revoluzion, and also a photographic essay about charity in India titled Kingdom Charity.
He is a usual photographer in Fronterad, in GLOBAL Group and the City Hall of Alcobendas. His most complete features out of Spain can be seen in Time, Der Spiegel, Stern, El Periódico de Guatemala or Miami Herald Magazine, among others. His last projects led him to the publication of the book Welcome about the refugee camp rohingya of Myanmar in Kutupalong with Doctors without Borders and to work in the essay Shipbreakers about those who are in charge of breaking ships in Asia. From the end of 2010 he is working in the feature Sicarios, a story about violence and death in Latin American that is exposed in the framework of PHE11.
He is currently developing new ways of journaling to promote his projects. He dedicates time to elaborate audio visual projects along with diplomatic tasks.
