The Beauty of Genesis (and why Sebastião Salgado is now one of my fave photographers)

Olá! I am currently writing this post from Brazil after submitting my final assignments of my degree. If the giant, eye-like tower in the photo above is unfamiliar to you- it is a famous landmark of Curitiba that belongs to MON (Museu Oscar Niemeyer). Niemeyer was a famous Brazilian architect who is said to have designed Brazil itself (one key example is Brasilia, purpose built to serve as the capital, and was designed predominantly by Niemeyer), and this giant eye is also an example of his work. If you ever will visit/have visited Brazil, although it is a huge country, I am sure no matter where you end up you will come across some of his designs.

When I went inside the MON recently (entry price is R$6, R$3 for students which translates into being very, very cheap), there was an exhibition of a photographer called Sebastião Salgado. The exhibition is named Genesis, and his stunning black and white photographs document the natural world that still exists next to our metropolitan world. The purpose of Salgado’s work is to show the unique beauty of the natural world that is under threat as our world continues to dominate and expand. We were allowed to take photos of the displays, but as it turns out it is very hard to photograph very glossy, black and white photographs so more often than not I would end up taking a selfie. Which could be viewed as an artistic representation of how our 21st century, technological lives are an ominous threat to the natural world, one could argue…

And here are some of my favourites:

Also just because the resemblance is uncanny:

The human in the photo is involved in a blog called ‘Ambassadors of the Queen‘ for Brazilian students interested in studying abroad in the UK. NB: all is written in Portuguese (unsurprisingly). 

A few days later I was scrolling through twitter and coincidentally The Impossible Project tweeted a link to Salgado giving a TED Talk on his work Genesis. It turns out that Salgado takes these stunning images on analogue film, and his own personal story of how he became passionate to protect the natural world is something worth hearing.

Also see here