Marcel Ribeiro Filho Collection
I was in Guinea Bissau at the beginning of the year to compose the crew of a documentary film about irrigation. In my free time began, it appear moments of interaction with the local population, this situation made me initiate a research project (still without name) that I will continue by the next years.
The brief commentary here is not a description of what happened or "my memories", the text is an exercise and reflection about what I really want with all this photographic set, or what is possible to elaborate with these images in the future. It is obvious that the experience is millions of times more important than my speech on aesthetics, but that is precisely why I will not speak yet, I believe that the images are the pillar of the research. At the moment are in images the answers.
The project, which is still unnamed, is still under construction, and currently has three collaborators, one in Brazil and two in Guinea-Bissau. The basic idea is to convert a large part of the photographic results into benefits for the population of "Campada" (name given to the village in Creole - mix of Portuguese with local dialects).
Despite of a large set of landscapes, it seems to be the turn of work in a series of portraits. Pictures are a union between my vision and the people of “Campada”, union between frame and environment. However, I do not want to focus all the work on humans figures, I would like to have an equilibrium between human image and another images, that the light of “Campada” be as protagonist well the inhabitants. In addition, the presence of the photographer must be in the image, it is impossible to compose "real" images without interference, my interference is real too, as real as they are real. The research have insertion in a critical context that seeks to problematize the dissociation between the "components" of the image. I do not want an image that confirms the photograph as a function of a pure speech, I want the contrary, to find in the images of the most varied discourses, preferably one to take authority from the other. The complexity of the image is that it makes framing synonymous with trimming, limiting a field and working with it. The environment in Guinea-Bissau - to my Western look - seems extremely cloudy, opaque and complex, I do not want to make images that take away this complexity, I do not only create to discover, I also create to confirm the problems, so that the problem is where nobody seems to know Africa. After this path, the images will return, their profitability, has come back in the form of interpretation, not only economic, but as presence, dialogue, stability proposals.
I do not worry about mapping fully, knowing all the possibilities, it is necessary to give time for the images to circulate, to let the reflection mature, the development happens, I come back in December, while this is in these images and in the project the challenge, these two factors they will tell us if we have the breath to do more.
For now here is this brief comment.
