Polka Gallery in Paris is where I attended my first photography exhibition.
After some thorough research on the photography exhibitions that were happening at that time in Paris, I found Salgado’s exhibition, who is one of the pioneers of documentary photography, a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist. Salgado traveled in more than 120 countries for his photographic projects.
The exhibition for me was like a rare gem that I found in an unfamiliar territory; it was based on Salgado’s photographic book ‘Genesis’, a spectacular body of work. It is a documentation of unblemished landscapes, wildlife, and indigenous communities that demonstrate how urgently the need is to protect these subjects. “What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph,” he said of his work. “What I want is to create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these pictures.”
Sebastião Salgado’s vision combined with practical actions through Instituto Terra not only rehabilitated a devastated landscape but also established a scalable model for environmental restoration that engages and benefits local communities, thereby addressing broader ecological challenges.
He and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, significantly contributed to tree planting and environmental restoration in Brazil through the Instituto Terra, established in 1998. This non-profit organization focuses on the reforestation of the Atlantic Forest, which has faced severe degradation over the years.
Stepping into the gallery after getting a fabulous cup of coffee from Terres de Café, I noticed that the gallery is showcasing several other works from world-renowned photographers on the 1st floor and the official exhibition is being exhibited in the next compound. Anyways, I wandered through and found my way to the gallery where Salgado’s work is and started to meander around, admiring the frames one by one. A few people were there, a light vibe in the air, the calm and the whole endeavor had an analog feel to it, apart from the essence of the work displayed and the meaning behind it and the act of walking around steadily and slowly gazing at photographs that were taken at a certain timeframe in a distant place by such a thoughtful artist and human being. Being both a photographer and a designer, you get gifted with the privilege of perceiving the world as a photographer and thinking about reality like a designer and both energies flow eventually and reflect themselves into one’s work and life.
What links this genre of art and the whole endeavor to my thesis and my lane is the lens through which I see the world. I believe that artistic bodies of work are intertwined and woven through an almost invisible web of truth, meaning and enigma, and when you tune in to that web at least once in your career/life, you will see that true art serves a higher purpose and strikes a chord inside every human being that sparks a paradigm shift or a wake-up call that will eventually alters one’s perception to a greater reality.
Later that year on May 23, I was struck by the news that Sebastiao Salgado passed away from leukemia, which made the experience of witnessing his work even more impactful and made me see the artist in a new light.
https://www.artnet.com/artists/sebastião-salgado
