Launch Of Photography Exhibition Showcasing Pictures Taken During ReGHID Fieldwork Activities
We are proud to invite you to join us for the launch of the online photo exhibition entitled “Transnational migration and Covid19 in Latin America” which will take place via Zoom on Friday 11th February 4:00-5:30pm UK time.
A competition to submit photos for the exhibit was run from May-June 2020 with the support of the SEED Social Responsibility Catalyst Fund from the University of Manchester. Further information about this competition can be found in this blog entry by the Global Development Institute.
Bruna Curcio, a photographer based in Manaus and a collaborator of the ReGHID project, won third place in the competition with photographs taken during ReGHID fieldwork activities in Boa Vista, Roraima in February 2020. Her photography series is entitled Varais, Portuguese for ‘clothes line’.
The series comprises 3 pictures, all portraying clothes lines – varais in portuguese – on different shelters for displaced Venezuelans in Manaus and Boa Vista, Brazil. With her series, Bruna seeks to unfold part of the daily reality of the displaced Venezuelan population in Brazil.
Bruna reflects on composing the shots and the experience as a whole
“Getting closer to the daily activities of migrants, whether inside or outside a shelter, is a valuable and uplifting experience. Knowledge about this reality often comes through numbers reported in the news and photographs of desaturated portraits that impress on the observer sensations such as lack and scarcity, limiting personal identification and distancing realities. The choice of photos that make up the “Varais” series is based on the search for similarities. What’s common in everyday life, in tasks, in care, in cleanliness, in the trivial. Identifying what connects us in essence brings awareness that we are all subject to situations of vulnerability, we are invited to see ourselves from a different perspective. Such invitation to “recognise yourself in the other” is explored in images that do not reveal faces and do not highlight eyes. This choice in composition seeks to avoid conditioning reactions in the observer when contemplating the photograph, and leaves the imagination free to serve its own narrative about those people at that moment. The vibrant colours rescue the memory of a striking revelation during contact with migrants: their abundance. There is a great and surprising dose of joy, hope, courage, and resilience in every gesture witnessed.”
For the photographer, these records provide the opportunity to exercise a de-colonizing perspective, that values plurality and provides a certain alterity.
The winning photographs can be seen below, and you can follow this link to see more pictures of this fieldwork.
To join the exhibit launch on Friday 11th February, please register here
