In New Orleans, I met Scott Dalton and was so excited to see his work - Macondo. Vibrant, full of life, the work was really beautiful to look at, and its connection to Marquez's Columbia was a great way to showcase what is going right there, instead of what we look at as the seamy underbelly of the country.
Macondo: Journeys in Garcia Marquez's Colombia is a series of photos that explores the region of Colombia that produced Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the renowned author and Nobel laureate. Garcia Marquez drew from his youth in Colombia's Caribbean coastal region to create the fictional community of Macondo, the centerpiece of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," his best-known novel. Macondo, with its whimsy and charm, has come to symbolize for Colombians everything good and special about their country-- a welcome relief from the stereotypes of drug-trafficking and violence that so mark it. Eccentric and eclectic, timeless and earthy, vibrant and lush, a place where truth and fiction, myth and reality merge, Macondo is as much a state of mind as a place, an enchanted reality that still exists... if you know where to look.
