#FacesOfPhotography – Teil 78: Caio Guatelli aus São Paulo

Caio Guatelli glaubt – trotz oder gerade wegen – in den harten Zeiten der Pandemie in Brasilien an die Kraft der Fotografie. Mehr dazu hat er den #FacesOfPhotography erzählt:

How are you?
Surviving

What ist you photographic main focus?
My main focus is to remove the blindfold from society’s eyes, and to show, with some little poetry, that everyone is responsible for the worst human disease, the social inequality. Somehow, I believe that the impact of strong photography can play a hole in finding the cure.

How is the crisis currently affecting Brazil?
Here in Brazil we have three big crises working together to knock down people’s hope.
One is pandemic — the New Coronavirus.
The second is epidemic — Brazilian current government.
And the last, and maybe the hardest one, is endemic — most of our population are born with no condition to fight our worst disease, the high social inequality. It is a fact since 1500, when Portugal colonised this land.

Manaus – Brasil – June 11 of 2020: Manaus was the most affected city in Brazil. This image shows Manaus cemetery, which saw the average number of burials grown from 26 to 130 burials per day.

What have you experienced professionally since the beginning of the crisis?
Those two local crises have been transforming the pandemic crisis into a boxing ring for political matters. So, what I feel, is a divided nation crossing a fragile moment. The New Coronavirus is magnifying the tensions between ideological beliefs. During the pandemic coverage, I have been feeling people polarised by misinterpretation, by political characters, of what this crisis is really about.

Manaus – Brasil – June 13 of 2020: Although the number of Covid19 infected people is decreasing, Manaus Field Hospital still sees its ICU operating at full capacity. The number of incoming victims has been decreasing. In the other hand, four days after the end of quarantine, emergency paramedics are finding new cases appearing in the city.

What are you currently working on?
As no one knows how this chaos will be overcome, I’m shooting a documentary without a script, with no date to finish.

What do you think is the task of photography in these times?
For an immediate purpose, photography can act in social defense (see George Floyd’s episode. It wouldn’t have reach that level without the photographic technique). But it also has many other tasks, like transforming the fear into hope, emptiness into poetry. All these tasks cooperate to illustrate the pages of our history.

Sao Paulo – Brasil – June 04 of 2020: One death every minute. This was the average death toll for Covid-19 lon June 02 in Brazil. This image shows the burial of a Covid-19 victim, at Vila Formosa cemetery. São Paulo, Brazil.

Do you think that ways of seeing and visual languages will change against the background of the crisis?
I believe this crisis is confirming the tremendous power of a language that is still in its puberty. Many populations, the majority, are still visual illiterates. At least they are now aware that, if they don’t want to be manipulated, they have to learn the visual and audiovisual languages.

What is your personal photographic wish for the time after the crisis?
To keep living as a photographer.

Website von Caio Guatelli
Instagram-Feed von Caio Guatelli

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