Luis Bustamante is a renowned Chilean photographer who went into exile in the United Kingdom during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. He was born in Valdivia, Chile in 1943 and began his career in photography in the early 1970s. His early work focused on documenting the lives of workers and social movements in Chile.
After the coup d'état in 1973, Luis Bustamante went into exile in Hull, where he continued his photographic work. His work is characterized by portraits of the Latin American community in the UK and documenting the lives of migrants and their experiences in the diaspora.
Bustamante has received numerous awards and has exhibited his work in several galleries and museums around the world. In addition to his photographic work, he has also been a photography teacher at various educational institutions in the UK.
"I only remember what I’ve seen in photographs"
York, 1978
Hello Luis. You are a Chilean exile who arrived in the UK as a refugee. Tell us how you left your country.
I arrived in the UK at the end of 1974 as a refugee following the 1973 coup d’etat in Chile. I was a mature student at the university in my home town and with many fellow students and lecturers I spent some time in a detention camp. Most of us were temporarily released when a UN human rights group turned up in town and I used the opportunity to flee to Santiago and subsequently Buenos Aires.
Hull, 1977
You worked as a photographer in Chile – do you have photographs from that time?
There I had used photography as an activist and supporter of the Salvador Allende government. Most of my work was documentary and recorded the process of change that was taking place. I even managed to get a picture of Allende at a rally. He was very short sighted and in the picture, shot into the light, you could see the huge letters through his speech script. That’s the biggest fish that got away and it only remains imprinted in my memory as this and most of my negatives from the time got lost in the upheaval of the coup.
Hull, 1977
Why did you settle in the UK?
With my partner Carmen we settled in Hull where we continued our interrupted studies. Thanks to the generosity of the British people and Harold Wilson’s government we were granted scholarships to complete Master of Philosophy degrees in Spanish literature. When we arrived, Carmen looked out the train window into a dark, misty and cold December mid-afternoon after leaving sunny, hot, Buenos Aires. “This cannot be it” she said with a shiver. But it was and we spent five years studying and teaching there. People were nice, they called you ‘love’ and tried to make things easy.
Hull, 1976
What’s the relationship between Hull and the Spanish Civil War?
At the time, the Spanish Department at Hull University was led by Prof Brian Morris who had an interest in the Civil War and had published several books on the poet Federico García Lorca. My thesis explored the work of Miguel Hernández and the Spanish Civil War poets. I had an interest in how artists got involved in political processes and how Miguel Hernández, like Víctor Jara in Chile, became the voice of the people and paid with their life for their commitment. Hull might seem like an odd place to study a people’s poet from the Spanish Levante.
Cambridge, 1977
Did you continue with your photographic work in Hull?
My photography continued as soon as we settled in Hull, with a Nikon camera bought second hand in Buenos Aires, where we spent the first stage of our exile. My Pentax, that had captured the extraordinary explosion of joy surrounding the Allende years, helped pay for flights from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Photographing in Hull came without much of a plan. I wasn’t looking back, I could hardly see ahead – I just hovered in the moment, but I could witness how the social order was reaching a key junction.
Hull, 1976
Have you always done social documentary photography? Have you worked in other fields?
My remaining catalogue begins with documentary photos of the UK in the seventies and the most recent work includes photographs of the social uprising in Chile in 2019. In between, I’ve photographed the urban environment in South America and Europe, a lot of political rallies in Buenos Aires and the big antiwar protests of 2003 in Britain. Recent projects include a study of the Santiago Metro, the place where the events of 2019 flared up and another one on the confrontations of the social Estallido. My work has evolved from the educated vision of the modernist photographers to the consented photograph, one that establishes a fleeting but intense emotional complicity with the subject. I’ve done commissions from time to time, mainly for artists like sculptors Antony Gormley and Peter Burke. Commercial work wasn’t for me though – I could never handle the discipline of running a business. For a living I organised photography courses and educational activities at The Photo Co-Op (later Photofusion) in London in the 80s and went on to coordinate the degree photography course at City of Bristol College until 2010.
London, 1976
Photography is a leading force in your family. Your children are somehow involved in photography
My daughter Sarah does 3D digitisation for the Bristol University visual archive. My son Sebas is a visual artist and curator. During their school days they would have Richard Avedon’s work as an inspiration. His books In the American West and Evidence 1944-1984 are the most dog-eared books in my library having routinely travelled to school in their rucksacks. They went on to study photography in further and higher education.
Buenos Aires, 2012
You live in Bristol a city with many great photographers. How do you find its photographic environment?
Despite practising in Bristol I’ve remained disconnected from its creative circles. I always manage to miss all the calls, except when colleagues and friends turn up and we use the opportunity to visit the Martin Parr Centre and the Royal Photographic Society. My visual style is on opposite corners from the Parr trend which I feel upsets the balance between photographer and subject. In Bristol, my colleague Martin Edward and myself ran El Busta Travelling Studio a long-term project between 2011-19 that set up a 19th century itinerant camera-darkroom in different cultural and community events across town.
Santiago, 2019
How would you define your photography?
My use of photography was always a compensation strategy. As I am neurodivergent (ADHD) I am unable to read reality in real time and photographs enable me to recall the details I’ve missed. This way the camera helped to understand the new country we came to live in. It was both a shield and a window that helped daring to look.
My natural subject is people in their context. The built environment provides an orderly backdrop. My primary influences were the FSA photographers in the US, especially Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, and LIFE magazine photographers, mainly W Eugene Smith. Americana was a strong cultural influence in Chile at the time. My composition was shaped by medieval and Renaissance religious painting (I went to a Catholic school) and European modernism. Throughout time, the strongest influence has been Argentine writer Julio Cortázar’s idea that things might not be as we see them and photography forces us to countenance that alarming possibility.
Buenos Aires, 2005
How do you see your work within the present photographic scene with digital photography and camera phones?
I use my own digital darkroom to produce high-definition files from the old negatives. I transformed my old wet darkroom into a digital studio and converted the enlargers and lenses into digital tools which enable me to keep control of the whole production process and retain the analogue feel of the negatives. I like making large prints that become objects in their own right and where you can see the film grain, the DNA of analogue photographs. It’s a sort of marriage of convenience where both media enhance each other.
I believe the massive commercialisation of photographic devices likes smart phones and point-and-shoot digital cameras have definitely changed the character, use and diffusion photography. The photographer is no longer a witness, they have become part of the image. Photography as we knew it in the 20th century has run its course.
The work has remained mostly obscure. Only the effort of my son Sebas, who does visual curatorial work, has allowed a modest exposure thanks to online digital spaces. This also led to the publication of several printed fanzines in the Café Royal Books collection mostly with material from the 70s and 80s. I really enjoy my association with Craig Atkinson, the publisher. I send him lots of pictures and he edits them in a way that always pleases me. My photos are also in the British Culture Archive, which specialises in historical material.
Santiago, 2019
Have you got any projects in the pipeline?
I hope to continue developing book projects. Blurb dummies don’t sound too professional but they push me to dig in the back catalogue to find the stories and put the images online. I have material to produce monographs on several cities and places. Sebas, myself and local people are working towards an exhibition commemorating the 50 years of the Chilean coup d’etat in Hull.
London, 2003