Shine Heroes
That reality is multiple, is shown by the work of the Uruguayan photographer Federico Estol: he reveals stories that lie beneath the surface of the streetscape and adds an extra layer to them. Every day, 3,000 shoeshine boys of all ages wander the streets of La Paz and El Alto, looking for customers.
They form a striking phenomenon in the Bolivian capital: all lustrabotas wear balaclavas to avoid being recognised. In doing so, they arm themselves against stigmatisation. In the neighbourhood where they live, nobody knows that they polish shoes, some even hide it from their families.
The balaclava makes the shoeshine boys invisible, but it also gives them an identity, a mutual connection in a kind of collective anonymity, which has the same power as the prejudice and exclusion they are shielding themselves against. Estol followed the shoeshine workers for three years and together they devised scenes in which he photographed them as superheroes standing by the community. Shine Heroes thus became a photo essay, an indictment of discrimination.