Sebastiao salgado: children, enfants, kinder

R$ 500,00

Sinopse

In every crisis situation, children are the greatest victims. Physically weak, they are often the first to succumb to hunger, disease, and dehydration. Innocent to the workings and failings of the world, they are unable to understand why there is danger, why there are people who want to hurt them, or why they must leave, perhaps quite suddenly, and abandon their schools, their friends, and their home.In this companion series to Exodus, Sebastião Salgado presents 90 portraits of the youngest exiles, migrants, and refugees. His subjects are from different countries, victims to different crises, but they are all on the move, and all under the age of 15. Through his extensive refugee project, what struck Salgado about these boys and girls was not only the implicit innocence in their suffering but also their radiant reserves of energy and enthusiasm, even in the most miserable of circumstances. From roadside refuges in Angola and Burundi to city slums in Brazil and sprawling camps in Lebanon and Iraq, the children remained children: they were quick to laugh as much as to cry, they played soccer, splashed in dirty water, got up to mischief with friends, and were typically ecstatic at the prospect of being photographed.For Salgado, the exuberance presented a curious paradox. How can a smiling child represent circumstances of deprivation and despair? What he noticed, though, was that when he asked the children to line up, and took their portraits one by one, the group giddiness would fade. Face to face with his camera, each child would become much more serious. They would look at him not as part of a noisy crowd, but as an individual. Their poses would become earnest. They looked into the lens with a sudden intensity, as if abruptly taking stock of themselves and their situation. And in the expression of their eyes, or the nervous fidget of small hands, or the way frayed clothes hung off painfully thin frames, Salgado found he had a refugee portfolio that deserved a forum of its own.The photographs do not try to make a statement about their subjects’ feelings, or to spell out the particulars of their health, educational, and housing deficits. Rather, the collection allows 90 children to look out at the viewer with all the candor of youth and all the uncertainty of their future. Beautiful, proud, pensive, and sad, they stand before the camera for a moment in their lives, but ask questions that haunt for years to come. Will they remain in exile? Will they always know an enemy? Will they grow up to forgive or seek revenge? Will they grow up at all?

Participantes

Autor: Sebastiao Salgado

Autor

SEBASTIAO SALGADO

Sebastião Salgado nasceu na cidade mineira de Aimorés, em 1944, mas vive em Paris desde fins da década de 1960. Obteve o mestrado em Economia pela Universidade de São Paulo, em 1968, e tornou-se doutor pela Université de Paris, em 1971. Trabalhou na Organização Internacional do Café, em Londres, entre 1971 e 1973, antes de retornar a Paris e passar a fotografar profissionalmente para a agência Sgyma em 1974. Transferiu-se no ano seguinte para a Gamma, iniciando a documentação sobre as condições de vida dos camponeses e índios latino-americanos que o tornaria mundialmente conhecido. Em 1979 deixou a Gamma pela prestigiosa agência Magnum, que chegou a presidir e na qual permaneceu até 1994, ano em que criou, com sua esposa Lélia Wanick Salgado, a Amazonas Imagens. Em 1982 foi contemplado com o prêmio Eugene Smith (EUA), inaugurando assim uma longa série de importantes prêmios internacionais, entre os quais se destacam o World Press (Holanda, 1985), o Oscar Barnack (Alemanha, 1985 e 1992), o Erna e Victor Hasselblad (Suécia, 1989), e o de Fotojornalismo do International Center of Photography (EUA, 1990). Recebeu ainda diversas outras honrarias, sendo representante especial da Unicef e membro honorário da Academia das Artes e Ciências dos Estados Unidos. É autor, entre outros, de Trabalhadores (1997), Terra (1997), premiado com o Jabuti 1998 na categoria Reportagem, Serra Pelada (1999), Êxodos (2000), África (2007) e Gênesis (2013).