Map Of Latin American Dreams By Martin Weber

Nearby, an acrobat in La Nina, Argentina, contorts for the camera, her sign reading, "I want to be a lawyer." In La Habana, Cuba, a teen-age girl holds a stuffed bear: "I want to marry an American." A young girl sits on the ground at Maclovio Rojas, on the Mexico/U.S. border, holding a sign saying, "I want to be a police woman." To either side of her stand two other children: One holds a toy pistol pointed at her, the other slumps in a sheepish, head-down pose.
Through the signs, Weber makes his photography a platform for his subjects to tell the viewer about themselves -- they are represented as people with goals, dreams, desires, rather than just victims. Yet, of course, pathos remains in the gap between the opportunities that we perceive these people to have and the dreams they express.
In the gallery at Silver Eye, Weber supplies a large chalkboard for viewers, so that we too can inscribe our dreams. The juxtapositions with the artwork can prove jarring, even sickening: Where one Weber photograph depicts a mother posing with her family in Son Onofre, Colombia, her sign reading, "That they return the remains of my son Jose Luis Olivo Cardena, victim of the paras (paramilitary)," a Silver Eye visitor has written: "That I owned the Steelers."