A photographic homage to our planet in its natural state
“In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.” —Sebastião Salgado
On a very fortuitous day in 1970, 26-year-old Sebastião Salgado
held a camera for the first time. When he looked through the
viewfinder, he experienced a revelation: suddenly life made sense. From
that day onward—though it took years of hard work before he had the
experience to earn his living as a photographer—the camera became his
tool for interacting with the world. Salgado, who “always preferred the
chiaroscuro palette of black-and-white images,” shot very little color
in his early career before giving it up completely.
Raised on a farm in Brazil, Salgado possessed a deep love and respect
for nature; he was also particularly sensitive to the ways in which
human beings are affected by their often devastating socio-economic
conditions. Of the myriad works Salgado has produced in his acclaimed
career, three long-term projects stand out: Workers(1993), documenting the vanishing way of life of manual laborers across the world, Migrations(2000), a tribute to mass migration driven by hunger, natural disasters, environmental degradation and demographic pressure, and this new opus, GENESIS,
the result of an epic eight-year expedition to rediscover the
mountains, deserts and oceans, the animals and peoples that have so far
escaped the imprint of modern society—the land and life of a
still-pristine planet. “Some 46% of the planet is still as it was in the
time of genesis,” Salgado reminds us. “We must preserve what exists.”
The GENESIS project, along with the Salgados’ Instituto Terra, are
dedicated to showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done
to it, and preserving it for the future.
Over 30 trips—travelled by foot, light aircraft, seagoing vessels,
canoes, and even balloons, through extreme heat and cold and in
sometimes dangerous conditions—Salgado created a collection of images showing us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in breathtaking beauty.
Mastering the monochrome with an extreme deftness to rival the virtuoso
Ansel Adams, Salgado brings black-and-white photography to a new
dimension; the tonal variations in his works, the contrasts of light and
dark, recall the works of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Georges de
La Tour.
What does one discover in GENESIS? The animal species and volcanoes of
the Galápagos; penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the
Antarctic and South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators and jaguars; African
lions, leopards, and elephants; the isolated Zo’é tribe deep in the
Amazon jungle; the Stone Age Korowai people of West Papua; nomadic Dinka
cattle farmers in Sudan; Nenet nomads and their reindeer herds in the
Arctic Circle; Mentawai jungle communities on islands west of Sumatra;
the icebergs of the Antarctic; the volcanoes of Central Africa and the
Kamchatka Peninsula; Saharan deserts; the Negro and Juruá rivers in the
Amazon; the ravines of the Grand Canyon; the glaciers of Alaska... and
beyond. Having dedicated so much time, energy, and passion to the making
of this work, Salgado likens GENESIS to “my love letter to the planet.”
Whereas the limited Collector’s Edition is conceived like a large-format portfolio that meanders across the planet, this
unlimited book presents a selection of photographs arranged in five
chapters geographically: Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern
Spaces, Amazonia and Pantanal. Each in its own way, this book
and the Collector’s edition—both edited and designed by Lélia Wanick
Salgado—pay homage to Salgado’s triumphant and unparalleled GENESIS
project.
The world premiere of Sebastião Salgado: GENESIS opened at the Natural History Museum in London on April 11, 2013.
The exhibition builds on the Museum’s reputation as the home of the
planet’s best nature photography. For further information and to book
tickets please go to www.nhm.ac.uk/salgado. Additionally,
from May 14th, a special portfolio of platinum prints from GENESIS will
be shown at Phillips Howick Place gallery in London.
