15 photographs and respective captions, selected by Else R P Vieira, from the
book Terra: Struggle of the Landless, by the internationally renowned
Sebastião Salgado, considered by many the best documentary photographer
in the world today (published in English by Phaidon Press, 1998). The captions,
by Salgado himself, weave a verbal narrative of the drama of Brazil’s
dispossessed and migrants and of the various stages of the struggle for land.
The visual and verbal narratives further tie with the musical one, made up of
four songs and respective lyrics by Chico Buarque de Hollanda, a foremost Brazilian
composer. The preface to the book is by José Saramago, the first writer
in the Portuguese language to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The
book is dedicated to the millions of landless families in Brazil whose plight
Salgado documented in 1996. The exhibition Terra, equally resulting
from this work, took place in 1997 in 40 countries and over a hundred Brazilian
cities. It also marked the beginning of the activities, at the University of
Nottingham, of the project and website The Sights and Voices of Dispossession,
together with the Colloquium Landless Voices, held in September 2001.
As part of the activities related to the conclusion of the project, Sebastião
Salgado was awarded the degree of Doutor Honoris Causa by the University
of Nottingham in December 2002.
Editor’s Note:
Material related to Sebastião Salgado’s projects and major
works can be found at his official website
www.terra.com.br/sebastiaosalgado
A special website was set up by the New York Times as a tribute to
Terra
www.nytimes.com/specials/salgado/home
Thanks to Sebastião Salgado for providing free use of his photographs and captions on this web site. For further information about the photographs and captions contact neil@nbpictures.com |
