“I try with my pictures to raise a question, to provoke a debate, so that we can discuss problems together and come up with solutions.” – Sebastião Salgado
Sebastião Salgado presents Amazônia, a landmark exhibition celebrating the breathtaking landscapes and indigenous peoples of the world’s largest rainforest.
One of the medium’s most masterful living practitioners, Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado is renowned for his powerful monochromatic images that articulate, with great eloquence, some of the most key questions of our age.
During the course of his near-five decade-long career, he has traversed the globe, capturing some of the most extraordinary and at times, harrowing scenes imaginable. However, for his most recent project, he looked a little closer to home. Over several years he made a series of journeys through the vast section of the Amazon that covers almost the entirety of northwestern Brazil, and there, worked closely with twelve different indigenous groups to create this landmark exhibition.
Designed and curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado and soundtracked by French composer Jean-Michel Jarre, the immersive exhibition comprises over 200 breathtaking black and white images, from dramatic, large format landscapes, to intimate portraiture. It aims to convey the dramatic beauty and diversity of what the photographer calls “paradise on earth”, and thus highlight the importance of its conservation at what is a crucial tipping point in the fight against climate change.
The exhibition is on display at London’s Science Museum until March 22nd and is part of an international tour that previously visited Philharmonie in Paris, MAXXI in Rome; SESC in Sao Paulo, and the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro. It will open at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester in Spring 2022.
– Find more information on the exhibition and purchase tickets here.
All images © Sebastião Salgado