2. Sebastião Salgado 2/2
• Sebastião Salgado was born on February 8th, 1944 in Aimorés, in the state of Minas
Gerais, Brazil. He lives in Paris. Having studied economics, Salgado began his career
as a professional photographer in 1973 in Paris, working with the photo
agencies Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum Photos until 1994, when he and Lélia
Wanick Salgado formed Amazonas images, an agency created exclusively for his
work.
He has travelled in over 100 countries for his photographic projects. Most of these,
besides appearing in numerous press publications, have also been presented in
books such as Other Americas (1986),Sahel: l’homme en détresse (1986), Sahel: el
fin del camino (1988), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations and Portraits (2000),
and Africa (2007). Touring exhibitions of this work have been, and continue to be,
presented throughout the world.
Sebastião Salgado has been awarded numerous major photographic prizes in
recognition of his accomplishments. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and an
honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States.
3. • In 2004, Sebastião Salgado began a project namedGenesis, aiming at the
presentation of the unblemished faces of nature and humanity. It consists of a series
of photographs of landscapes and wildlife, as well as of human communities that
continue to live in accordance with their ancestral traditions and cultures. This body of
work is conceived as a potential path to humanity’s rediscovery of itself in nature.
Together, Lélia and Sebastião have worked since the 1990’s on the restoration of a
small part of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. In 1998 they succeeded in turning this land
into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra. The Instituto is dedicated to a
mission of reforestation, conservation and environmental education.
4. • «That is why I always hope that my pictures will provoke a debate. I know that these
pictures alone are nothing. But these pictures, together with humanitarian
organizations, with the newspapers, and with the children, all together, can probably
build a new society. And the question is how to do so. I believe we can do this by
opening up a dialogue. We must open our minds to a discussion. We must start the
discussion with our neighbors, in our streets, with our community. Maybe this would
cause us to elect responsible people who compete to bring forth new, good ideas.
The people want new ideas. »
• « We have change the scale of value of goods produced here in the northern part of
the planet: the computers, the high technology products. They have a price a very
inflated price. And the products produced in southern part of the planet they have a
price, and that price keeps decreasing.
• In the end, globalization - I came to understand during those years - is an incredible
system that we have created in order to to transfer wealth from one part of the planet
to the other.
• It is not that you work in the US more than the others, not that the French more than
the Africans, that’s not true. In Africa, I saw these guys working hard, twelve hours a
day to produce. »
(excerpts from Sebastião Salgado lecture in his "Migrations" show at the Berkeley Art
Museum, February 2002)
• http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/pubs/OP26_Salgado.pdf
5. main photographic essays
1978 On the problems of accommodation and conditions of living in the "4000 Habitations" La
Courneuve, suburb of Paris. Work ordered by the Local Council in order to set up a major
exhibition exposing this problem.
1979 Photographic research on the varying degrees of success of how immigrants have
integrated themselves in European Society. Work mainly carried in France, Holland,
Germany, Portugal and Italy.
1977/84 Research on the condition of living of peasants and the cultural resistance of the Indians
and their descendants in Latin America. Work mainly carried out from Mexico to Brazil.
1984/85 Work about the devastating effects of the drought in the Sahel region of Africa, working
with the humanitarian aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).
1986/92 Documentary project on the end of large-scale manual labor, working in 26 countries.
1994/99 Population Movements around the World. 36 photographic investigations on migration,
throughout the world.
2001 Series of reportages on the global polio eradication campaign done by UNICEF and
WHO.
2004 Beginning of Genesis, a series of black-and-white photographs of landscapes, wildlife
and human aspects, aiming to depict the unblemished faces of nature and humanity.
6. THE CHILDREN: Refugees and Migrants
• In The Children: Refugees and Migrants, Sebastião Salgado gives us portraits of
children under the age of fifteen from Mozambique, Rwanda, Croatia, Burundi, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Brazil, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Angola, and many
other countries who will bear the burden of an uncertain future. Part of a major
exhibition at the United Nations in New York City during the Millenium Assembly in
2000, The Children is a companion volume to Salgado's Migrations.
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50. GENESIS
• Genesis is a long-term photographic project, in line with the main bodies of work
carried out previously by Sebastião Salgado; for example, the series of reportages
presented in Workers or the series on the theme of the population movements around
the world, that appeared in Migrations. This new project is about our planet earth,
nature and its beauty, and what remains of it today despite the manifold destruction
caused by human activity. Genesis is an attempt to portray the beauty and the
majesty of regions that are still in a pristine condition, areas where landscapes and
wildlife are still unspoiled, places where human communities continue to live
according to their ancient culture and traditions.
Genesis is about seeing and marvelling, about understanding the necessity for the
protection of all this; and finally it is about inspiring action for this preservation. The
shooting of this series of photographic reportages began in 2004 and is due for
completion in 2012. Like other work of Sebastião Salgado, the Genesisreportages
have been, and continue to be, published in, among others, France’s Paris Match, the
USA’s Rolling Stone, Spain’s La Vanguardia, Portugal’s Visão, the United
Kingdom’s The Guardian and in Italy’s La Repubblica.
51. • Once the project is completed, an international presentation of the images will be
made in the form of one or several books and exhibitions.
Until now twenty reportages have been completed: they include the Galapagos
Islands in Ecuador, Antarctica and the Bushmen of Botswana.
The Genesis project is being produced with the support ofChristensen Fund, of Susan
and Mark Buell in the USA and of especially the Vale company in Brazil.
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181. Sebastião Salgado books
• Portoguese-language editions.
• Trabalhadores (1996) ISBN 8571645884
• Terra (1997) ISBN 8420428744
• Serra Pelada (1999) ISBN 2097542700
• Outras Américas (1999) ISBN 8571649030
• Retratos de Crianças do Êxodo (2000) ISBN 8571649359
• Exodos (2000) ISBN 8571649340
• O Fim do Pólio (2003) ISBN 8535903690
• Um Incerto Estado de Graça (2004) ISBN 9722109839
• O Berço da Desigualdade (2005) ISBN 8576520389
• África (2007) ISBN 3822856223
• English-language editions.
• An Uncertain Grace (1992)
• Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age (1993), includes photos from 26 countries
• Terra (1997)
• Migrations (2000), includes photos from 39 countries
• The Children: Refugees and Migrants (2000)
• Sahel: The End of the Road (2004)
• Afrika (2007)
182. • French-language editions.
• Les Hmongs, Médecins sans frontières, Chêne/Hachette, Paris, 1982
• Sahel: l'Homme en Détresse, Prisma Presse and Centre National de la Photographie, pour
Médecins sans frontières, France, 1986
• Autres Amériques, Contrejour, 1986
• La Main de l'Homme, Éditions de La Martinière, France, 1993
• La mine d'or de Serra Pelada, Galerie Debret, Paris, 1994
• Terra, Éditions de La Martinière, France, 1997
• Exodus, Éditions de La Martinière, Paris, 2000
• L'homme et l'eau, Éditions Terre Bleue, Paris, 2005
• Africa, avec Mia Couto et Lélia Wanick Salgado, Tashen France, Paris, 2007
• German-language editions.
• Workers - Arbeiter. Zur Archäologie des Industriezeitalters. Verlag Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt
am Main 1993, Bildband
• Terra. Verlag Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 1997, Bildband
• Migranten. Verlag Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2000, Bildband
• Kinder der Migration. Verlag Zweitausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2000, Bildband
• The End of Polio. Dokumentation der UNICEF-Kampagne zur Bekämpfung der Kinderlähmung
• Photo Pocket. Edition Braus im Wachter Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-89904-238-2
• Afrika. Taschen Verlag, Köln 2007, ISBN 978-3-8228-5621-5, Bildband
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/winter2010/images/1kwordsFull/05-1-450-43.jpg Iceberg, Antarctic Canal. 2005 Sebastiao Salgado - Iceberg Between the Paulet Island and the Shetland Islands, Antartica
