Chan K'in Viejo and Trudi Blom
photo by G. Blom

Gertrude Dudy Blom
(1901-1993)

Trudi Blom grew up in the Canton of Berne in the Swiss Alps, the daughter of a Protestant minister. She earned a degree in horticulture. This seems an incongruously pastoral background for a woman whose later career as a political activist would land her in jail in fascist Italy and a Nazi detention camp in France at the outset of the war. Trudi arrived in Mexico in 1940 prepared to leave her activist career behind only to find the cause that would preoccupy her for the rest of her life; the Lacandones and the Lacandon Rain Forest. In 1943 she accompanied a government expeditions into the Lacandon Rain Forest where she first encountered the Lacandones. Trudi and her husband Frans Blom bought a large property in San Cristobal de Las Casas in 1950 where they founded the cultural and scientific centre of
Na Bolom. Although Trudi never considered herself a photographer, she left us with tens of thousands of photographs, one of the great legacies of documentary photography. A large part of these photographs bear witness to her long and intensely personal relationship with the Lacandones. She fought tirelessly trying to save the rainforest. The scorched, barren landscapes in many of her photos are a harsh indictment of the tragic destruction. Trudi developed loyal friendships among the Lacandones and was one of the most ardent advocate for their way of life.