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Hi. Good morning.
I'd like to start by saying that I am a wanderer,
a sort of loner.
and I always bring my camera along.
Usually it's my companion.
Most of the time.
Curious how , with it hanging from my neck,
wherever I go,
people usually identify me as the guy
who is carrying a camera around.
Later, as they get closer,
photography ends up being the ice breaker.
They start a conversation, either if they have never taken photos or if they like photography,
and curiously, even in the most far away places,
to talk about photography is to talk about how we see the world,
how we see identity, memory, life and death, truth, imaginary stories.
This is what I want to talk to you about today,
one of these experiences in a small village, Nazaré do Mocajuba,
in northeastern Pará State.
A very isolated village, almost a 3-h drive from Belém,
mostly on a dirt road.
A very small village, with two dirt roads
on a river, the Mocajuba River,
where people live off what they grow and fish.
Right from the start, I loved the place.
I started to live with and get involved with the people, the daily life of the village.
I mean, with this absolutely charming geography.
I was slowly accepted by the village,
recognized by the villagers,
and in this way we slowly started to weave a network of affection,
which I consider to be the basis of what I do.
A celebration that moved me very much was the celebration of the dead,
that they have on November 2nd.
They call it "illumination".
They decorate the whole cemetery
and at night, they light up the cemetery and take some food,
sit and talk and laugh, no sorrows, no resentment,
rather a feeling of permanent revision.
For me, this is the main meaning of memory,
the noblest meaning of memory, indeed.
I was delighted
more and more delighted over time.
And seeing the part of reality I was getting in touch with,
in truth, a moment defined the beginning of my work,
something I never know when will happen.
A lady asked me to take her photo.
She said, "Sonny, could you take a photo for a document?
I need this for a document." I said, of course.
After that, when I delivered the service to her,
there was a shower of requests.
"Ah, an aunt of mine is about to die and we don't have a photo of her..."
A series of photos started to appear then
and, in fact, I decided to stay as the village photographer.
It was a wonderful time, a time of wonderful involvement,
and I gradually got closer and closer to the people
using photography as a vector, as an instrument of approximation.
Curiously, I started to notice a certain attitude in the act of taking photos.
A solemn attitude, dignified, beautiful, that touches me deep down.
And that also, it was not only the old people,
the children too, like Lucas, over there, very active, staring at the camera,
firing at me through the equipment, I was fascinated.
Dona Francisca, beautiful, holding her skirt.
So I took many photographs.
Then, Seu Carmelino, the village's coffin maker.
The burial urns.
Television had also just arrived,
it was when electricity had just arrived, the television,
and a certain change in the behavior, the photographing act.
That day I was delivering the orders,
I hung it on a line and placed a small piece of paper
with the name of the person who had ordered it and the person could take it.
I had a research grant at the time,
which allowed me not to charge them for the service,
it's a village where money is hardly used.
So they had the opportunity to have a photo
which, for them, was so cool.
Also, time-worn images started to show up.
which they, very sad, showed me, what they were losing.
I also started to restore these photos
and return them to the village, this memory, which was being lost.
Then, finally, I started to go into their homes more
and started to observe very personal objects, that looked just like their owners.
I observed, and sometimes, someone passed behind the cloth,
I just observed.
That was wonderful, and I started to propose swaps.
I said, "Would you give me this curtain if I gave you a new one?
"But it's old sonny." "But I find it beautiful."
After that, we started to swap sheets, hammocks.
And, in fact, I started to transpose all the people on the computer
for a solarization.
And I used my body to measure.
When I hugged, at the moment of contact, I observed,
"Seu Suzano is this tall,"
and I took note of his height and used his actual height.
I chose many people.
At last, I started to reproduce the people on their personal objects,
life-size.
Dona Benedita, when she saw herself, stared in silence and then said,
"Gosh, I never imagined I looked so much like my curtain."
I said, "ah..."
She was incredibly wise, she hit the nail on the head.
and Lucas, in a small Pokemon sheet, so beautiful, in the middle of the Amazon.
Seu Poã, Dona Alice.
This is an exhibit I did in Belém,
and I managed to get two vans
and took practically the whole village to celebrate this moment with me.
That was a beautiful moment when we mainly,
we celebrated our meeting, our friendship,
the affection that we developed.
Branca, beautiful, all dressed up, spent the night beside her cloth.
People looked at the cloth,
she looked at the cloth, looked at the person, like that...
That was beautiful.
And here, not in chronological order, sorry,
but I showed this exhibit in the village, before the exhibit in Belém.
so that they could actually have contact with the work,
they held the cloths, laughed, smelled, it was also a beautiful moment.
The women made juice of fruit from the village and we celebrated.
As some were fishing, and others were planting,
I asked them to take the cloths home.
I said, "Now let's leave the cloths at your homes,
whoever wants to see them will go from home to home."
I went from home to home...
Branca here again, with the cloth, how cute.
I ended up going to the homes
and photographing the cloths at their homes.
It was beautiful, because the table cloth was not a table cloth anymore.
The sheet was not a sheet anymore.
Something magic happened there
and put that object in another dimension.
These cloths are unique pieces, they've never been sold.
They circulate...
I am happy, they have circulated a lot around the world.
I hope that someday, some institution,
some museum will at last protect them.
Preserve them better than I can.
But these photos that you can see now,
are the record of the cloths in the homes,
these we do sell.
Now, also, fortunately,
some museums and collectors are becoming very interested in the images,
and the money is split, part goes for the making of the photo,
and part goes for the village,
with freedom to decide the best way to use it,
to invest this money.
Here, I'd mainly like to tell you
that I think the camera...
will probably continue to be my companion,
who knows, till the end of my life.
And despite common sense,
which says "a picture is worth a thousand words,"
I can't see any other way of presenting Nazaré do Mocajuba,
no other way except by telling a story.
In an attempt to...
Sorry...
...to give you a little bit of the feeling,
of the magic, the emotion that I lived.