With great excitement I accepted the invitation from my dear colleague, curator and photography historian Marly Porto to serve on the photo essay exhibition jury at the 2021 edition of Photothings festival that she’s organizing in São Paulo, Brazil, in March—April 2021. The winning photo essays are exhibited in a virtual exhibition, opening April 27.
Learn more about the festival on its website, http://photothings.com.br/ and follow the festival updates on its Instagram account @photo.things or by just clicking here https://www.instagram.com/photo.things/
Festival Photothings photo essay exhibition jury:
Alongside with an international panel of experts, between March 24 and 31, I reviewed 224 photo essays submitted by Brazilian photographers. We rated the photo essays on a scale from 1 to 10 points (16 submissions received 10 points from me). After the points were counted and winners announced, each of us wrote a short essay about two of the highest rated photo essays.
This is a list of winners whose photo essays are included in a virtual exhibition, opening April 27, and in a special limited edition publication.
Watch a video on the festival Photothings YouTube channel about the winning photo essays:
See the winning photo essays in a virtual exhibition on the festival Photothings website here http://photothings.com.br/exposicao-photothings/ or click on the screenshot below to visit the exhibition:
See the winning essays in a virtual exhibition on the Metrô de São Paulo website here https://biblioteca.metrosp.com.br/index.php/ptbr/359-linha-visuais/950-photohings or click on the screenshot below to visit the exhibition:
Jury members were asked to write brief essays about two of their favorite photo essays. Below, please see the two essays I wrote about photo essays by Gisele Martins and Rodrigo Garcia.
Gisele Martins, “Interiors”
Image from Gisele Martins’s photo essay “Interiors”
At the first sight, the photo essay “Interiors” captivates with the bright colors of the surfaces and the rhythms, patterns, and arrangements of daily use objects. Then, the absence of people creates a sense of mystery. The images also provide no connection with the outside world. Viewers are left guessing what the houses look like from outside or from a distance. With exception of one image where through a window we see a wooden house on stilts, presumably similar to the one inside of which the photograph is taken, the essay immerses the viewers completely into the details of indoor spaces.
The photographer takes up the role of a careful and sensitive guide who reveals to us fragments of a world of great beauty which, paradoxically, at the same time is also a world of great poverty. The photo essay captures details of vernacular, do-it-yourself interior design all the while avoiding excessive sentimentality or exploitation, the two major risks to those who choose to photograph marginalized groups of the society.
This photo essay does not victimize or exoticize the people who have created these interiors. Instead, it presents these interiors as outcomes of conscious choices that people with limited resources have made to express their aesthetic sensibilities. Looking at one photograph after another, the viewers can imagine themselves traveling from house to house, observing them from different angles and different viewpoints. Such type of viewing reminds a walk through an art museum, a visitor always moving and lingering ever so briefly at some pieces. The respectful presentation quietly acknowledges the creativity of people whose means to change the world are so limited.
Learn more about the photographer on her website: http://giselemartinsphoto.com
Rodrigo Garcia, “Memorial Chapadão do Zagaia”
Image from Rodrigo Garcia’s photo essay “Memorial Chapadão do Zagaia”
The photo essay “Memorial Chapadão do Zagaia” captures the viewer’s attention with its cinematographic quality, the sense of narrative which is achieved by the image sequence, and the subdued, earthy color scheme. Like a film, this photo essay opens with an almost panoramic introduction, followed by a dynamic sequence of closeups of architectural details and interiors as well as portraits of three older men. Individual photographs are bound together by a rhythm of the contrasts between dark interiors and bright sunshine in outdoor photographs capturing a few historical buildings with white walls, a ruin, and a spot reclaimed by wilderness. The last image—a close-up of a man’s legs in well-worn jeans, standing with bare feet on what looks like a reddish adobe floor—leaves the ending of the imaginary film open.
This photo essay tells its story without women and children, although the viewer cannot be sure if it is a purposeful choice or older men are the only remaining residents. The portrayed men are aging as is their environment, and there are no signs of rejuvenation in sight. The photo essay evokes a sense of melancholy. Although I see this town for the first time, the feeling is familiar because it reflects the longue durée processes of urbanization and modernization that are truly transnational and have been unfolding across countries and continents throughout the last century or so. We all know areas that have lost their former socioeconomic role or abandoned industrial buildings that are converted into modern art museums. This photo essay beautifully captures a historical town in the state of decline, which may, or may not, turn out to be only a transitional time.
Learn more about the photographer on his website: https://rodrigogarcia.46graus.com/historias/