Artist’s Statement:
It took many years of photographing in foreign countries until I found the topic that would finally set my life into the course I am committed to now. Six years ago I entered a landfill called La Chureca in Managua, Nicaragua to find two boys living amongst trash smiling back at my camera. It was the first time I felt my body chemistry change while taking these first shots in this mysterious place. I felt premonition. I became compelled to help this community in any way that I could and the best way I knew how to start was by taking pictures and getting to know these people. When you truly want to help someone else, you must have compassion and understanding for life from their perspective. You might find that whatever you could dream to do to help is never going to be enough. When taking on a task like figuring out ways to help people and with years of campaigning, it forced me to take a deeper inner look at my own self and everything I had to change about myself in order to be a better person to help them. To become genuinely involved in a topic like this makes you shift your outlook on your own life, the actions you take or reserve on and who you associate with. I could never remove this experience from my heart. It changed me for life and for a better good. I have explored this topic throughout Nicaragua, Bangladesh, India, Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela. I expect this to be a lifetime commitment because the work needed to help is endless and I love doing it. That is why I moved to Nicaragua to work with the community on a full time basis. I created Right Path Projects many years ago in the effort to help landfill communities through photography and now I live with this community and help with environmental. educational and healthcare modules. These informal recyclers are some of the hardest working people in the world and with the littlest in return. That is why it is important for me to photograph them with love and resect. To know them, to talk with them, photograph them, play with them, to hold them when they cry and love them comes with my highest gratitude to consider some of these people family and friends.
Artist’s Bio:
With a BFA in Documentary Photography, Timothy Bouldry explored various countries around the world in search of a topic he could photograph and feel committed to. It was not until he crossed paths with a landfill called La Chureca in Managua, Nicaragua that he would find the topic he is most passionate about. Since then, he has revisited La Chureca in many numerous accounts to record everything that was happening. He paid particular attention to one family as he followed the their journey from living amongst the trash in a shanty; to relocating and receiving a concrete house. La Chureca then was becoming secured and converted into a Methane Gas into energy project. His photography and films have been seen in various publications, campaign events, exhibitions, television interviews and auctions. Activists have used his photography to present to The US House of Representatives, The US Senate, and The Organization of American States. He is in regular conversation with The Environmental Protection Agency who showcased his work for the 2013 Methane Expo at the Vancouver Convention Center. Since then, he has explored many landfills in different regions of Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela and Colombia. His work will continue to expand globally. Currently, he is relocating to Nicaragua to work full-time with La Chureca and other landfill dependent communities similar to it. His goal is to create more community development, help provide healthcare, educational programing and manage alternative cleanup modules; starting with the treatment of landfill leachate using duckweed.