Daniel Sanchez Bataller is finalist in the 2019 Image Of Research Competition
Person in Santiago de Chile
This person in the streets of Santiago de Chile is holding a poster with the message: “Monthly Pension $53,447 [$76 USD]. I pay electric, water, gas. I suffer and my stomach suffers too. Forgive me for begging.” Once a member of the “aristocracy of workers” in the copper mining industry, Oscar early-retired in 1985. His industry, first nationalized by socialist President Salvador Allende, was privatized in 1981 with the new economic model brought by the Chicago Boys after Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’état. The country became a “laboratory of neoliberalism” imposed by military force and the terror of fascism. Decades later, Oscar states his indignation surpasses the shame of exposing his situation speaking up in the streets. My research looks at culture in Chile after the demise of socialism. This image illustrates the broken promise of happiness and the reality of free-market capitalism.
See the competition website here.