Sebastião Salgado: Amazônia

“My wish, with all my heart, with all my energy, with all the passion I possess, is that in 50 years time this collection of images will not resemble a record of a lost world. Amazonia must live on.”

 

As Sebastião Salgado’s main world gallery for over 30 years now, we are honored to present his latest epic project titled “Amazônia” about the Brazilian Rainforest, which opens at the gallery September 1, 2021 and runs through January 8, 2022 in Santa Monica, California. This will be the first US presentation of “Amazônia” having recently opened at Philharmonie de Paris before embarking on its global world museum tour with confirmed venues this year alone in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, London and Rome. Additionally, we will have on view key works from Salgado’s previous reportages, including “Gold Mine”, “Genesis” and “Other Americas” amongst others.

 

Salgado has ventured into the Amazon since the 1980s, fostering relationships with some of its tribes, of which there are 188 in Brazil alone, he writes in the book. Some, like the Yanomami, he has returned to over decades, while he has enjoyed privileged access to others, becoming the first non-indigenous person to visit every village of the Zo’é people, Salgado says. For “Amazonia” he spent nine years and 48 trips disappearing into the forest for weeks, sometimes months at a time, returning with new stories and feelings of communality. “When we come to work with these tribes, we come home,” he says.

Even if the Amazon in his photographs appears pristine, Salgado rues the rainforest already lost. “For a long time, we’ve built our society based on natural resources. We’ve destroyed,” he says. “We must protect what we didn’t destroy. We must be smart enough to survive.”

 

Press Coverage:

1st Dibs Interview with Sebastião Salgado by Ted Loos