Sebastião
Salgado: On Photography and Globalization
Mimi Chakarova, Lecturer of Photography at the Graduate
School of Journalism
Sebastião Salgado.
I had heard the name many times. I had seen it underneath
photographs that remained imbedded in my memory for years:
images of history; images of raw skin, sweat and blood. They
were photographs that I held up for my students as proof
that it is possible to become one with your work, to make
it happen. Yesterday, the name that I had heard and seen
so many times transformed itself into a warm handshake and
a smile. Sebastião Salgado sat in my office and I
had so much to say that nothing came out. I wanted to ask
him how and why he has devoted 35 years of his life to documentary
photography and activism. Why he paints, in shades of gray,
the human condition of globalization. I wanted to ask him
how he manages to shoot 200 rolls of film in twenty days.
I wanted to know about those shoeboxes at home that contain
300,000 work prints instead of soft leather and lace. But
most importantly, I wanted to know about the 300 photographs
in four galleries on display at the Berkeley Art Museum and
UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
I first saw "Migrations:
Humanity in Transition" in New York's International Center
for Photography. I tried to absorb it, but couldn't. I returned
the next day
and still felt I needed more time to comprehend the profound
meaning of Salgado's work. Fortunately for those of us in
the Bay Area, the exhibit at UC Berkeley's Art Museum will
be on display until March 24, 2002. "Migrations: Humanity
in Transition" and "The Children" tell the story of those
who leave behind everything they know in search of a better
life, work, safety. Salgado spent seven years on the migrations
project and two years on research and preparation. Nine months
out of the year he photographed 43 countries in Africa, Europe,
Asia and the Americas. When a student asked him, "How do
you connect with these people?" Salgado answered, "If you
become a documentary photographer, it's a way of life. You
can't be indifferent in your life. You must understand the
story of these people. You must act along with humanitarian
organizations. In the end, you write, you photograph, you
film. It's your own ideology.
In the end, photography is nothing more than a mirror of
the society in which you live. An image needs no translation."
Sebastião
Salgado just turned fifty-eight. He was born on a farm in
Brazil. He had
seven sisters. Later on he studied economics. He understands
better than most that there is a price to be paid for each
release of the shutter. On Monday night, February 11th,
Salgado spoke at Wheeler Auditorium. "I met many people crossing
the border of Guatemala and Mexico. Why are you going to
the United States? What are you expecting? 'Well, we want
work. To get a small house. A car.'" Migration has always
existed but, as Salgado points out, never on the scale that
it does now. Most listeners that night were surprised that
Salgado spoke little of photography. Instead he addressed
the audience by posing questions about the reality of today's
world. "How can we live in a society that's a society for
all?" he asked. "We must open our minds and have a discussion.
A dialogue. We must act, we must work together. We must protect
all people."
Later in a conversation
with Orville Schell, the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism,
Schell asked if Salgado had become more or less hopeful in
the last ten to fifteen years. "I've become less hopeful" was
the answer. "There are very few Third World countries where
the second trip is better than the first. But I am not giving
up hope. Photography for me is a universal language. It's
the reason. People allow you to come inside their lives.
They accept you. It's very powerful. To freeze this moment-a
fraction of a second. You understand the distress of these
people. These pictures are not objects. They speak of history.
But the photographs alone are nothing." "So what is the answer?" asked
Orville Schell. "That's the question. What's the answer?" Salgado
replied, smiling at the audience.
But Salgado's work is
living proof of how one person's efforts as a creative human
being can sustain change. In 1998, he and his wife, Lélia
Wanick Salgado, created Instituto Terra, a non-profit organization
that promotes the reforestation of Bulcão Farm, a
1,600-acre private property in Brazil. Salgado's hope is
that reforestation will reduce rural poverty and global warming,
and increase biodiversity. Salgado is currently working on
a photography book on Ecuador. "I hope these photographs
that are out there can help build a new society. We can achieve
a much more human globalization," Sebastião Salgado
said.
