OPEN FIRE

What is the future of our natural sites?

What is the future of

our references,

our identities,

our memories?

Fire is a sharp weapon.

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OPEN FIRE is the result of my reflections as photographer and citizen in the face of the current situation of irreversible loss caused by fires.

Focusing on the destructive fires that have recently swept away landscapes around the globe, the majority of them interpreted as a consequence of climate change, but in Latin America also an outcome of political conflicts, this work appropriates the violence of fire upon natural and cultural heritage and unveils the unrecognisable environment it leaves for future generations to live in.

OPEN FIRE consists of a photography-based experience in which image, sound and text are interwoven to expose annihilation by fire in my home country, Brazil. By pushing the photographic medium to express my understanding on this situation from a Latin American perspective, the work develops as follows: first, I photograph natural areas of high relevance for conservation in Brazil with a medium-format analogue camera. After being developed, I burn the photographic film – reproducing on the material that carries the representation of these places of great immaterial value the aggression that has been openly inflicted upon the actual landscapes. After burning them, the resulting three-dimensional pieces are digitized and presented in juxtaposition to news-sourced stories involving fire that have happened recently in Brazil as well as to insights I have during the making of the work. On the online platform that hosts OPEN FIRE, these stories are presented as audio narrations in my own voice which provide a ‘subjective audio description’ for each of the photographs, also available as text captions. Through the interweaving of this visual and audio-textual material a narrative emerges, contextualizing and echoing the loop of violence and destruction by fire we have been facing in Brazil. 

With OPEN FIRE, I aim to encourage debate around a contemporary issue that is rather of global relevance, it is environmental, social, historical and political, and urges to be discussed in a framework in which society would play the role of protagonist and not of spectator.

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This work has been awarded the Earth Photo-Photoworks Award 2024, the POY Latam Carolina Hidalgo Vivar Prize 2023 and the Brazil's National Arts Foundation Marc Ferrez Photography Prize.

 

The multimedia show 'Open Fire' can be accessed here.

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