Exhibition tells the history of Brazil through photographs

From 1860 to the present day, around 270 photographs tell the history of Brazil at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio). The exhibition, called “Earth in times: photographs of Brazil” is subdivided into seven thematic axes: structure, power and nature; body and subject; family, affection and housing; work and production; technology, photography and access; uses of public space and festivities; spirituality and mystery.

The exhibition seeks to bring up issues such as national identity and portraits of the nation. About 120 artists collaborated on his pieces.

Among the highlights are photos by renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado. One of the images, taken in the Crateús Region, from the Homem Latino-Americano series, records a family in the Brazilian backlands.

Another highlight of the show is the portrait made by Evandro Teixeira, which shows the march of the 100,000 in Rio, in 1968, calling for the end of the military dictatorship. The image of two indigenous people from the Yanomami people, by Claudia Andujar, and the record of Carnival made by Nair Benedicto are also present in the exhibition. In addition to pieces by renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado.

Three works by photographer Aline Motta create a different dynamic and propose other readings of erased episodes in Brazilian history. The visual artist questions the process of building the memory of racialized people and, through documentary traces of her own family, maps ancestral narratives that permeate the relationships between the dispersion of African heritage and the social consequences inherited from the long period of slavery in Brazil. .

For Beatriz Lemos, the exhibition’s curator, photography has the power to, in an instant, capture attention.

“As a sensorial code, each photograph challenges us to face the presences within the same fragment and, at the same time, to decipher absences. Turning to what is apparent in the images can denounce the silences and faults that circumscribe them”, says the curator.

The exhibition is open to the public until the 17th of July.