Postcards from Utila

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | 5 photos

These photographs are a selection from my MFA Utila thesis project. As a first generation Croatian immigrant to Canada, I have always been fascinated by tourism and the role images play in a country's representation. Snapshots of saturated sunsets over beaches, opulent hotels, delectable seafood, historic architecture, and smiling locals in ethnic Croatian clothing have represented my country for decades, despite the civil war, extreme poverty, corrupt political regime and the lack of financial means that have prevented most Croatians from experiencing any of it. Similarly, when I had visited Utila, Honduras, on a dive trip, the ephemera that was being sold shared the same aesthetic. Digging deeper, I found common threads between my sentiments and the experience of Hondurans.

As the main contributor to the Utilian economy, tourism is vastly important to the livelihood of the local population, and the Honduran government is making many efforts to promote the island as a dive mecca without much regard for the potential negative after-effects of the industry, including; over-fishing, mangrove and coral reef devastation, and increased social inequality. In a sense, these photographs explore the negation of these realities in travel literature despite the role of tourism in exacerbating them, and encourage the audience to recognize the ways framing dictates their perceptions.

Coming to Canada has offered me both challenges and possibilities I would never have otherwise experienced in Croatia and I feel that this scholarship is one of them. I believe photography has immense power to affect global change, and I aspire towards my work being a step in that direction. I have much to learn from Mr. Edwards in this respect and I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to do so.