New angles for a visual language, as an offer,
to communicate how we see and feel the world to others
A young Yanomami photographing the cerimonial dance of the Xingu Nations, at the VIII Indigenous Festival.
A man from Xingu dances
flowing with other groups,
during the Indigenous National Festival.
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"What will be left of the Xingu river for the people of Xingu?
from Amazon Watch
Brazil's state dam company, Electronorte, is moving ahead with plans to build one of the Amazon's most controversial development projects - the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River in the state of Pará. The Belo Monte dam replaces an old proposal for hydroelectric construction on the Xingu, abandoned over a decade ago in the face of massive international and national protest."
© Ami Vitale
"100eyes bringing photographers together to work on projects of cultural and social significance. "
Girls Gavião Kyikatêjê.
They are Hãwykyderi and Purukwyi.
I saw them enjoying their own picture in a small digital camera,
I instantly aimed my camera,
they instantly aimed their eyes for me
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a picture forever
in my soul
and social changes...
cameras and arrows.
About some things, I feel so lucky to be a testimony.
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Finally, many Brazilian Indigenous People from different groups
are discovering the photography and having access.
Finally they will be able to be the
protagonists of their own history.
Here a Wapishana men shows their own picture to a Kuikuru man.
It's so clear why we all love development...
I was inside the cabin when I saw this Pareci (Haliti) woman
during the Indigenous National Festival, 2008.
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Marina Silva, the last environmental voice of resistance in Lula's government resigned this week as Brazil's environment minister. She says she lacked the necessary political support to protect the Amazon.
She was the only voice defending that the Brazilian economic development can't be obtained at any price, specially the fragile Amazon area, while the social politics of the government are pressuring all to create a big show using the "PAC" (Programme for Accelerated Growth), to produce the illusion of a developed and emergent country.
"Brazil is losing the only voice in the government that spoke out for the environment," said Sergio Leitao, director of public policy for Greenpeace in Brazil. "The minister is leaving because the pressure on her for taking the measures she took against deforestation has become unbearable."
National and international agribusiness men, woodcutters, transgenics producers, miners owners, large constructor companies and the rural bench are all celebrating.
I'm feeling as an orphan.
Bororo people cannot live in homologated land. Although to have its demarcated territory, the Bororo of the land Jarudori (Mato Grosso state) is obliged to live spread in other lands of its people, because its traditional area is invaded by squatters. Invasions, violence and epidemics - of tuberculosis and measles - had contributed for exit of many of the Bororo families who lived there.
> Indigenous National Festival at Bertioga city, 2008.
"To create a site or blog showing his life or produce a short video and placed it on the web are now more than common practice for most young people of large Brazilian cities. But what we would say if it was done by bloggers and videomakers from indigenous communities of the Amazon or Canada? There are these processing experiments possible by new communication technologies that will be presented at the second edition of the Native Media, seminar which will be held in Sao Paulo between days 25 and March 27.
In the event, designed by the Research Center of Public Opinion in Contexts Digital (Cepop / Atopos) of the School of Communications and Arts (ECA) of USP, members of ethnic groups such as Guarani, Terena and Xavante will share their experiences media, which are the publication of books, production of radio programs within the villages and reach the digital production more explicit, such as CDs, Websites, Nets and blogs. Also will be present representatives of natives from Canada, where similar projects have been developed by the people Algonquines and Atikamekw.
"What is happening today is a revolution. It is the power of the press ", defines Massimo di Felice, a professor of ACE and one of the organizers of the meeting. For him, the new digital communication technologies represent an unprecedented experience for people before "invisible" as the locals: to be the protagonists of their own history. "For 500 in many years, the Indians in Brazil were the object of policies on the part of governments, FUNAI, NGOs. Today, with the help of the Internet, they have the opportunity to make direct diplomacy, without the intermediation of the organs and entities that tutelage. They even disclose their texts, their culture, and come in contact with international organizations, for example. "
Indigenous People and young population from the periphery
At the first Native Media, which occurred in 2006, several texts of indigenous authors then presented were gathered and published in Italy, in the form of the book Indiografia. This second edition of the event has broadened the issue of indigenous peoples also for the young people of the suburbs of large Brazilian cities, as Ronaldo Costa and Elieser Santos. They created the Canal do Motoboy, a virtual daily journal where motorcyclists write and publish photos generated by mobile phones on their day-to-day in the middle of the chaotic transit of Sao Paulo city.
For Di Felice, this is a clear signal that the role electronics that are changing indigenous people is a fact worldwide. "Today, any individual can produce their own content and make it available online for the whole world. This reverses the various models of communication classic which separated clearly an emitter, the 'owner' of the information, the receivers, "says Massimo.
Apart from the changes in culture communicative, Massimo also points to a qualitative change of citizenship. The web, he said, allows people who live in the same locality is aware, to organize themselves and, above all, create ways to act on the environment in which they live. "The digital culture is promoting an activism, with implications, I would say, for the explosive politics. People are going to have a relationship of direct action on its territory, without going through the traditional forms of authority. It is a production of a new form of citizenship, more collaborative and participatory, ".
A Yawalapiti baby was dreaming during the ceremony...
I was dreaming with her future.
Pontos.de.Vista (Points.of.View) is a Portuguese website about photography showing collective exhibitions, individual portfolios and invited photographers, where I spend a lot of time looking through really nice photographers body work.
I was honored by their invite, as a guest author, to show some of my work there.
You can see it at this link: "Incendiary of Souls".
Many thanks to Sofia Quintas and Paulo Rodrigues (photographers and leaders of Ponto.de.Vista) for this opportunity, and specially to contribute with the memory of the Indigenous Peoples culture, that are constant living such a strong transformation in Brazil.