ABOUT

Fonografia Collective is a collaboration between a journalist, a photographer, and other contributors working to bring local and international stories about human rights, the environment, and social issues to a wider audience.

Utilizing radio, photography, the written word, and multimedia storytelling, Fonografia Collective focuses on how important global issues like development, economic trends, climate change, health care, immigration, or poverty affect underrepresented communities and ordinary people’s lives. Since 2005, these stories have taken us to the U.S.-Mexico border, Panama, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru, Turkey, and Haiti.

Fonografia Collective wholeheartedly believes that empathetic, balanced, and compassionate journalism must inform audiences, shape public opinion, and influence the creation of progressive national and foreign policy. Now more than ever we – as journalists, photographers, and witnesses – must strive to foster cultural understanding and tolerance while shedding light on the most pressing issues of the day.

At a time when our media industry is reinventing itself and looking for new, more sustainable models, we feel that documentary-style, non-breaking news features about real people and real places must be part of this evolution. Fonografia Collective will continue to explore new ways of telling human stories, as well as seek a more collaborative approach to journalism, one that can grow into a community of like-minded global storytellers.


BIOS

Ruxandra Guidi | Journalist & Producer

Ruxandra is a writer and producer with experience working in radio, print journalism, and multimedia. She has reported from the Caribbean, South and Central America, as well as the U.S.-Mexico border region. Currently, she’s working on two long term in-depth projects, about human rights in Haiti, and about forests in the developing world.

In the Fall of 2009, she taught a college-level class in the Radio-Film-Television Department at the University of Texas, Austin, called “Creative Storytelling with Sound.” She’s a recipient of Johns Hopkins University’s International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellowship, which took her to Haiti for a variety of stories in the Fall of 2008. Earlier that year, she and Bear Guerra worked on a series of reports for print, radio and television about the lives of coca farmers in Los Yungas, Bolivia, and about controversial drug policy under president Evo Morales, with funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Previously, she did reporting and production work for the BBC public radio news program, The World. Her stories generally focus on human rights issues, the environment, Latin American politics, rural communities, immigration, and popular culture.

Ruxandra has a Master’s degree in journalism from U.C. Berkeley. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, she is now based in Oakland, California, with husband and collaborator Bear Guerra.

Roberto (Bear) Guerra | Photographer

Bear Guerra is a photographer whose work focuses on humanitarian and social issues around the world.

In 2010, his photos for Ruxandra Guidi’s story, The Young Mothers of Port-au-Prince (Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 2009), were finalists for a National Magazine Award in Photojournalism. In 2008, he received a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Grant for a series of stories about coca farmers in Bolivia, and his photo essay on the grassroots opposition to La Parota Dam (Mexico, 2006) was exhibited in the 2008 International World Exhibition in Zaragoza, Spain. Other recognitions have come from the Magenta Foundation (Flash Forward: Emerging Photographers 2007, honorable mention); The Santa Fe Center for Photography (2007), The Golden Light Awards (2006 & 2004); American Photography 21 (2006) & 24 (2009); Shots Magazine (Documentary Issue #92); and The Society of Publication Designers (2005).

His images, photo essays, and multimedia stories have been published widely by outlets including Orion Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, Texas Monthly, Seed Magazine, National Public Radio, BBC’s “The World”, Guernica Magazine, The Sun, and others. He has also worked closely with non-governmental organizations including Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Rescue Committee, and the Children’s Environmental Health Institute.

Originally from San Antonio, TX, Bear graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Anthropology. Bear is also a member of the Via-Visuals photo agency.

Luis Guerra | Sound Designer & Composer

Luis Guerra is a musician and producer who has worked throughout Latin America, Europe, and North America. He produces and composes music for mixed media from his Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Terremoto Studios.

He has worked in the Peruvian Amazon on a documentary and archival CD about the Shipibo’s practice of using songs for healing. Currently, Luis is the sound designer and composer on a documentary film about Native American youth in New Mexico and Arizona. In 2009, he became a lead instructor for the Empowerment Through Music program, which teaches music production to incarcerated youth in the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center.

His music has been featured and reviewed on NPR’s “Latino USA,” The BBC’s “Global Hit,” and a New Mexico Public Radio series focusing on jazz musicians.