João Paulo Farkas: Amazônia

From 1984 to 1993, João Paulo Farkas (b. 1955, São Paulo, Brazil) took several trips to Brazilian Amazon, interested in recording the increasing occupation of the region, motivated by mining. He portrayed the quotidian of miners, of the peoples that live on the margins of the river and of the forest itself, from its beauty to the work of the rubber tappers and its deforesting. These incursions generated 12 thousand photos, 34 of which can be seen at the exhibition Amazônia, inspired on the artist’s bookAmazônia Ocupada [Occupied Amazon], with 120 images, to be released by Edições Sesc and Editora Madalena on November, 2015.

Over the course of 2015, Farkas’ project took many different directions: other than the solo show at Galeria Marcelo Guarnieri and the book itself, he presented exhibitions at Sesc Bom Retiro (São Paulo) and Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz (Ribeirão Preto). The artist sees all of the shows as complimentary, having the one at Galeria Marcelo Guarnieri a freer curatorial approach than the others, specially the one held at Sesc Bom Retiro, that had a geo-ethnographic approach to the images.

Plus, the opening of Amazônia will be accompanied by the release of an edition of seven portfolio boxes, with 18 photographs of 40 x 27 each conditioned in an exclusive wooden box created by the ACAIA Institute.