Nearly the end of my third cycle, I had this idea of working with the oriental influence in Lima. Most of all the visual aspect of them, the neon signs and the golden door knobs were all of great photographic value and capacity to me. It was all going on in my head, mostly questions, like why hasn't anybody done something big and meaningful about the Chinese phenomenon in Lima. I think it's a phenomenon because it started way back between the xix and xx century with a group of poor Cantonese immigrants, making a living out of cooking in "ghetto" places. And now they are literally EVERYWHERE, in every single district, everyone has their local chifa. Right where I'm living, there are 2 chifas within my block. That says something, and there's a ton of background to that. Digging and researching more into the subject, I kept getting even more interested. It's not only about their pretty neon signs anymore, it's also about the socioeconomic aspect too.
So this fourth cycle I officially started working on it for Photography IV class, starting with the closer districts. I have other classes that make it impossible to just focus on this project, that would have been great, having in mind that according to Wikipedia, there are over 6,000 chifas in Lima, not counting the rest of the country. Yep, that's a lot of chifas to photograph. But you gotta start somewhere right?
I've divided them into three categories: wariques, casas, and imperios. Those names are temporary, maybe. And I have two other categories in mind that I haven't photographed yet. The technical part: twin lens medium format camera, 6x6, Fujifilm Neopan Acros-100 film. There's obviously a whole meaning into why I choose b/w over color for this project, details some other day. This is going to be my thesis project and probably on-going for a good three or even five more years. Eventually I'm turning it into a huge book.