After completing the truly epic photographic monument Genesis, a photographic exploration of the untouched nature of our planet in its divine creative genius, the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado turned his attention to his native Brazil. And here to a region that, without a doubt, daily passes through the world press: Amazonas.

Sebastião Salgado, one of the most famous names in Brazilian photography, has always been very committed to the environment, especially the Amazon. The result of seven years of work (2013 to 2019) studying and photographing the many faces of the forest, the exhibition "Amazônia" is finally coming to São Paulo. Curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado, the exhibition features a total of 205 photographs that have never been seen before in Brazil.

Impressive Amazon

Even though the region is covered daily in the press, few people have any idea of the size and biological density of this region. For example, the entire Amazon region stretches over a total of 7.1 million square km. For comparison, Europe covers 10.2 million square km, USA 9.8 million square km, Canada 10 million square km and Russia 17.1 million square km. The Brazilian Amazon covers about 70% of this rainforest area, including the Tocantins Basin. The biodiversity of the Amazon region is more than impressive. About 25% of all species on earth live in the Amazon rainforest; on average, a new life form is discovered every 3-4 days. 

Unfortunately, since the time of global colonizations, the indigenous people of each region have always been romanticized. Many readers still remember the images of the "noble savage". In the case of the Amazon region, indigenous tribes are a fundamentally important component of the biome. Indigenous tribes have always enhanced biodiversity. The Amazon is not just a forest, but what indigenous people generally understand as a garden as well.

It's just that the invasive interventions of indigenous tribes are of a completely different nature than, for example, the interpretation of a “European garden owner”. If one looks at the development of the Amazon, it seems to be almost a law of nature that flourishing diversity turns into a crisis-prone monoculture as soon as so-called civilized-urban man enters the scene.
Here the perception of the indigenous tribes differs fundamentally from the so-called civilization on nature, where for a long time attempts were made to bring a human order into the forests, which can still be found today in garden design in northern Europe and North America.

The photographic project

To realize this new project, Sebastião Salgado spent a long time alongside twelve isolated indigenous communities, navigating the gigantic Amazon River and its tributaries. However, the river system does not become the Amazon River until it reaches the urban region of Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is formed by the two main rivers, the Rio Negro, coming from the northwest, and the Rio Solimões, coming from the west, uniting at Manaus. Sebastião Salgado also flew over the dense rainforest with its driest mountain borders, especially in the north to the border with Venezuela. The project work lasted a good seven years. The exhibition is curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado and includes a total of 205 photographs that have never been seen before in Brazil.

The photographic project is a true tribute to Brazil and stands out for showing the beauty of nature in an unprecedented way. Sebastião Salgado's work is particularly moving because it reflects the delicacy and diversity of the textures of the Amazon rainforest in each of his photographs. Whether it's the formation of clouds, water falling through foliage, or even the movement of the river, it's all captured and transformed into a meaningful exhibition.

The flying rivers

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the "rivers from the air" that are responsible for the moisture of agricultural land in different regions, including outside Brazil, and stretching from the center-west and south of the country to Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. 

While many countries around the world are experiencing devastating droughts as a result of climate change, South America is well supplied with water. The cool wet is brought by the "flying rivers", humid air currents of the Amazon rainforest. When the sun shines on the Amazon rainforest, a fascinating effect sets in: Moisture evaporates in huge quantities over the rivers and forests, creating the so-called "flying rivers". 

So far, Brazil has been less affected by global climate effects because the country still has the largest tropical rainforest in the world, which plays a fundamental role in climate regulation. Very few people realize that in addition to storing carbon dioxide, a single tree can also release more than 1000 liters of water per day into the atmosphere.

The entire Amazon basin provides fresh water for many other parts of Brazil and northern Argentina, so it is important for Brazil's climate and economy. The region is one of the three largest food production zones for the world. 

This is an important message that Sebastião Salgado leaves, that is, the importance of the Amazon for the implementation of activities and its extraordinary role in the water production of the planet. Sebastião Salgado has captured this phenomenon in impressive photographs.

Instituto Terra

The couple Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Wanick Salgado do not just leave it at beautiful words and impressive photos. In 1998, the two founded the Instituto Terra. The initial project aimed to bring back to native life an approximately 600-hectare family farm that had been destroyed by agriculture. The project is located in the region of the municipality of Aimorés in the state of Minas Gerais. The biome belongs to the region of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest.

Sebastião Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in 1973 in Paris and subsequently worked for the Sygma, Gamma and Magnum Photos photo agencies. In 1994, he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado founded Amazonas Images, the studio that now exclusively handles his work. Salgado's photographic projects have been featured in numerous exhibitions and books, including Sahel. L'Homme en détresse (1986), Other Americas (1986), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations (2000), The Children (2000), Africa (2007), Genesis (2013), The Scent of a Dream (2015), Kuwait. A Burning Desert (2016), and Gold (2019).

Lélia Wanick Salgado studied architecture and urban planning in Paris. Her interest in photography began in 1970, and in the 1980s she began to conceive and design the majority of Sebastião Salgado's photography books and all the exhibitions of his work. Since 1994, Lélia Wanick Salgado has been the director of Amazonas Images (until 2017) and its Paris studio.

The Amazônia exhibition is sponsored worldwide by Zurich Insurance Group, which is also the exclusive sponsor of the Instituto Terra reforestation and biodiversity project in Brazil led by Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Wanick Salgado since 2020. The exhibition in São Paulo is sponsored by Itaú and Natura, companies associated with the Amazon cause, and Energisa and Banpará. In this edition, the project has the institutional partnership of Sesc São Paulo.

The exhibition can be visited at the Sesc Pompéia complex.

Rua Clelia 93, Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 9 pm and Sundays and holidays from 10 am to 6 pm, free access, to visit until July 31, 2022.

The author

The author, Frank P. Neuhaus, has himself carried out projects in the Amazon region in the sustainable forestry sector. He has traveled through the regions of Rio Negro, Rio Solimões, Tabajós, Xingu, Japurá and Trombetas.