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BRASÍLIA TEIMOSA - Exhibition at the ICA takes a close up of a stubborn community

In another collection of photos, the characters proudly display their materialistic predilections and pastimes, not just via the objects adorning their bodies, but above all through the way in which they pose and show them off in the sun.

When I met Jaciara, a 50 year old woman with the body of a 30, I asked her how she kept her figure. “Girl, this is what you get when you cart a wagon around for 21 years”, she replied before heading off, with her packet of cigarettes tucked neatly into her bikini top. When I saw João Francisco, I perceived how much he loved his horse, as I watched him take it for a dip in the sea before each time he set off on another journey during his day’s work.

It was in this way that I created the collection of images, over a year and a half of research - one minute laughing along with Boemia, a man who goes to the same bar every Sunday to look at the people on the beach, without fail wearing a dapper suit he bought over 30 years ago at a once renowned local tailors, the next being amazed by the way in which Fabio Silva manages to fish with just one arm (the other of which he didn’t lose because of a shark bite, he was involved in a motorcycle accident).

I’m able to piece together these different photos by focussing on a common thread: the way in which they all bring to light issues rarely touched on directly by the media, which by nature crushes and stigmatises issues of taste, consumerism and behaviour.

Today I look back on ‘Brasilia Teimosa’ as a project in which I tried to depict the humorous way in which these people look at their own lives. And if these images cause a stir, then it definitely won’t be because they are sensationalist, emphasise the “exotic other”, or take a pitying stance. In truth, what touches me the most is the wisdom that I can see lying behind all this energy and vulgarity, which is anything but self-pitying.

words and pictures by Barbara Wagner

BRASÍLIA TEIMOSA EXHIBITION
ICA Bar, Cinema & Concourse • April 12th to 20th
WWW.ICA.ORG.UK