Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: Eliziane Cristina da Silva de Oliveira

Visual Narratives of the African Continent: Êxodos and Gênesis, of Sebastião Salgado.

Photography. Photo Edition. Visual Narratives. Sebastião Salgado. Africa

Documentary photographs are capable of arousing positive or negative feelings in those who observe them. Considering the relevance of the work developed by photographer Sebastião Salgado, as well as the publication of his autobiography at the beginning of 2014, a project is proposed that allows a research that allows to analyze, from the images of the African continent published in the Exodus photobooks. (2000) and Genesis (2013), as is the construction of visual narratives about that continent, considering beyond the photographs, the editorial projects of each of the publications.

The choice of research objects came from reading the photographer's autobiography, in which he himself considers Africa as "his other Brazil" since the time he worked as an economist at the International Coffee Organization and made his first trips to that one. continent. Salgado stresses the importance of Africans, as well as their culture, in the formation of the Brazilian nation and, among other things, considers that the photographs he took in Africa during his work at the International Coffee Organization encouraged him to change the economy for photography, even Salgado claims not to be an expert on the African continent, but likes to photograph him for having an affective relationship with African countries and peoples.

The purpose of this research is to verify, from discursive constructions or photographic narratives, how the African continent was presented in each of the publications, considering that the photographer himself takes into account, in the elaboration of his books, the existence of an informative language. complete, which builds on the guiding axes that would be the story that the photos tell and their importance in the set or context in which they are edited and published. Thus, photographs are used to tell stories without the need for captions or other textual information. We notice in both books a significant difference in visual discursivity. The African continent is approached in two moments and from two perspectives: one that would be the destruction of the continent and suffering of Africans and another that would lead to the imaginary of the end, of death, and another that points to the imaginary of hope and the natural force of the continent and its populations.