Experimental confluence

The photobook Amazônia was published in São Paulo in 1978, in the midst of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Uniting the contributions of African American photographer George Love and Swiss photographer Claudia Andujar, the book has been recognised as a fundamental work in the history of photography in Latin America. What most comes to our attention is its semi-clandestine distribution, due to the intimate record of the Yanomami, a people who saw a considerable portion of their population exterminated as a consequence of a catastrophic policy of assimilation promoted by the Brazilian government. This chapter arises from an effort to better understand the context of production of the book. The basis of this chapter is the comparative study of other productions of the photographers along with the analysis of documents of the period. From 1970, at the height of the so-called 'colonisation of the Amazon' promoted by the military, until 1978, a year marked by indigenous militancy, we can see how the work of both photographers was used initially to accompany a discourse that defended the agricultural occupation of the forest, and finally to denounce the extermination of the indigenous population. By looking at this transition, it is possible to see how the photographers, especially Andujar, effectively appropriate their images and move towards greater experimentation in the production and editing processes, while entering a context of militancy and semi-clandestinity

Amazon rainforest · Archaeology · Dictatorship · Genealogy · Geography · Indigenous · Latin Americans · Military government · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Demography · History · Law