Brasil
Brasil is a photographic exploration of culture, landscape and light by the photographer, Kristin Capp. Shooting in black & white film with a Rolleiflex camera, Capp turns her lens on urban Brazilian landscapes with an encompassing curiosity, without the need to define or classify it. The result is 8 years of work that reveals a highly personal,fluid, syncopated and complex Brazil, expressed in photographs that disregard a heroic or ideological effort. Certain images touch us immediately by the impact of a strong visual presence, others leave us on the expectation of something that has gone, and from which they extract their strength. Many times we have the sensation that it is the camera itself that photographed, in spite of the artist, or better, as though it were operated by the photographer’s “optical unconscious”.
Copacabana Walk
Light Grid
Under Niemayer
In Rio de Janeiro, Capp is drawn to the relationship between natural shapes of the landscape and the city’s constructed forms; in Bahia, we are immersed in the culture that represents the largest African Diaspora in the world; and in Sao Paulo, one is moved by her point of view of the dreams, contradictions and values while she captures people, public spaces and physical structures. Brazilian landscapes, architecture, and way of life are totally present in the photos, but in an informal intimacy that undresses these themes. BRASIL features a text by noted Brazilian art critic Paulo Venancio Filho, and an original poem for the book by Sergio Alcides, based in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
See here to support the book project follow the link to Kickstarter Campaign which ends Oct. 26th.
BACKGROUND
I first traveled to Brazil to shoot stills for a documentary film on Capoeira in Salvador de Bahia. Moved by the energy of the African diaspora in Bahia, I was compelled to return to different regions of Brazil to shoot in both urban and rural locations. I lived in Rio de Janeiro and worked obsessively: photographing on back streets, on the beaches at night, and was especially drawn to the striking modernist architecture in Rio and Sao Paulo. A three-month artist residency at the Sacatar Foundation on the island of Itaparica in Bahia was a turning point in my life and work. I discovered that the work was expanding and would eventually take the form of a book.
THE WORK
After photographing for eight years in Brazil, the work is tightly edited and is ready to publish. Shot entirely on film with my Rolleiflex medium format camera, the silver prints made in the darkroom are already scanned, and the layout and design nearly complete. Selections of this work from Brazil have been exhibited at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek; the Goethe Center in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; the Bursa PhotoFestival, Turkey; Galerie Photo4, Paris, and Galeria Eduardo Fernandes, Sao Paulo. Many images in the book are in private and public collections in the United States, Brazil and in Europe.
Flamengo Window
Macarrão
Man in White
Futebol
Rio louvers
Nets Drying
Night bar
Baicul Racks
Conversation
Lamas
Leme Night
Quinta kitchen
Reflection
Burle Marx
Sea wall
Itaparica Buildings
