Arena Season 1, Episode 303

Martin Chambi and the Heirs of the Incas · BBC Four · Friday, February 6

Tonight Arena tells the story of one of the most extraordinary photographers of the 20th century. Martin Chambi , an Indian born into a peasant family in the remote Peruvian countryside, became a leading figure in the revolutionary artistic and social movements that swept South America in the 1930s. His magnificent photographs of the great Inca ruins were the visual epitome of the quest to rediscover the native culture of the Andes. At the same time his portraits recorded the whole of Peruvian society, the heirs of the conquerors as well as the heirs of the Incas. Shot on location deep in the Andes by Jorge Vignati , cameraman on Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, the film explores Andean life through Chambi's majestic photographs and looks at the relevance of his work 50 years on.