The exhibit from Sebastião Salgado named Genesis is hosted by ICP (International Center for Photography) which shows Salgado’s photography for his Genesis project. The project took eight years to complete and shows the beauty of nature and how people interact with it. The exhibit show about 255-270 photographs that are black and white and it is separated into category of Northern Space, Sanctuaries, Africa, Planet South, and lastly Amazonia and Pantanal. The audience who went to the exhibit where for anyone who are interested in photography and who are curious about why Sebastião Salgado named his project Genesis. Salgado named this project Genesis to show people that the planet is providing resources for creatures to live and to teach people to live in harmony with the planet.
The subject matter of the exhibit is about nature and its interaction with creatures animal and human. In the exhibit the photographs shows things of nature such as trees, water, animals. The things in the photographs are all related to the untouched part of nature from human civilization. There are also native people who lives in harmony with nature and not like those in modern civilization. the people that are photographed are nude with accessories or have cloth covering part of the body. These people have functioned well with out technology and survived by what nature has provided. On the other hand all the photographs doesn’t have anything of modern civilization.
A photograph that I liked in the exhibit was in the Northern Spaces category which looked like a cave painting. The photo description is, “The porcupine caribou (rangifer tarandus granti) population in the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is estimated around 200,00 animals. Alaska. USA. 2009.” The photograph showed porcupine caribou a sub-species of reindeer on a mountain by bird’s-eye view. The photo also showed other visual elements besides bird’s-eye view such as long shot, wide depth of field, and curved lines.
To summarize Salgado’s exhibit, Genesis, it is about the beauty of nature and to live in harmony with it. The untouched part of nature from modern civilization and the interaction of the native paints that the planet has provide greatly for civilization to advance. The exhibit definitely had an emotional impact by telling the viewer that animals and nature are declining by human destruction without be protected.
Good summary. I am glad that you highlight that it took Salgado 8 years to complete this project. No minor undertaking.
The photo you selected to discuss is an amazing one. Not so much as a photograph but the scale and vastness of the landscape is amazing. And of course in a weird way the photo shows us the use of technology as it must have been taken from a helicopter. How else could Salgado have gotten that bird’s eye view of the herd?
Do you think this work conveys the idea that nature is declining in the face of human destruction or that it is still majestic and more powerful than humans?