(Guatemala City, Guatemala) On the 18th of April, 1996, my father and I were abducted from our home and held captive for thirty-three days by an organized crime group known as “Los Pasaco”. In the early 90s, “Los Pasaco” were the most feared and notorious group of criminals in the country. During this captivity, my father was physically tortured and eventually had his left ring finger amputated and sent to my grandfather to pressure him into sending more money for ransom. Eventually, my father was released on the 30th day and told to gather more ransom money in order to have me released. Three days later, I was released in the small town of Chiquimulilla, Santa Rosa.

PASACO, 1996 is an investigative photography project that revisits this act. The project contains recuperated documents, media of the time, as well as new documentation of locations, people, and objects that took part in the act. The main objective of this project is to initiate conversations surrounding the story; those of violence, corruption, capital punishment, and criminal rehabilitation.

I was impressed by the quality and diversity of the work submitted to the Social Awards. Seeing projects from around the world that address a variety of meaningful social issues, such as climate change, immigration, activism, systemic racism, socioeconomic inequity, chronic illness, neurodivergence, aging, family systems, the effects of the pandemic, and LGBTQ+ rights was very moving. In addition to the subject matter, the formal and technical execution of each project was critical to my selection; I was looking for cohesive bodies of work comprised of strong individual images and was most drawn to projects where the artists spoke about social issues from a highly personal vantage point, using their own stories as a point of departure. As I was viewing all of the submitted work, one of my favorite quotes by Diane Arbus came to mind: “The more specific you are, the more general it’ll be.”

Luis Corzo’s winning project, Pasaco, 1996, tells the story of how he and his father were abducted from their home in Guatemala and held captive for thirty-three days by an organized crime group known as “Los Pasaco”. Corzo’s visual strategy is varied, alternating between photographs of locations and people involved in the abduction, archival images of the original site of captivity, and images that function as documents. In this latter category, one image depicts his father’s missing finger, which was removed by the abductors and used as a tool to demand more ransom money, while another shows cassette tapes containing recordings of conversations between the abductors and his family. The combination of a compelling, personal, socially-engaged story and a strong visual strategy made this project stand out.

- Jess T. Dugan, Artist & Co-Founder, Strange Fire Collective