EXHIBITION CANA

MUBE - São Paulo – 2005
Natal Shopping – 2004
Solar Bela Vista – Natal – 2003

Sugarcane is a photographic series dedicated to the world of sugarcane production in Northeastern Brazil. Moving between historic mills, vast plantations, and industrial facilities, the work documents landscapes, workers, and processes that have shaped the region’s economic and cultural formation.

Rendered in sepia tones and referencing 19th-century photographic processes, the series bridges past and present, evoking memory, labor, and transformation. Sugarcane offers a perspective that is both documentary and poetic on one of the most significant productive cycles in Brazilian history.
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Photos in Motion or The Wisdom of the pictures


(Paula Pires, translated by Henrique Fontes)



As if it were the ocean, the green Sugar-cane  plantation waves up until you 
loose sight on the skyline. Green ocean of smooth looking grass hiding the 
hard defensive lanceshapped and imponent leaves. Its sweet fruit made the 
place rich. Throughout the centuries, the sugar extracted from the "Green 
gold" has been weaving part of our culture's memory's web.

On this setting, to look upon the human figure - a blurred dot in such huge 
plantation - and notice its sense - simbolic landmark on the timeline - 
requires art.

Ah, the art of  seeing! From the transgressor´s eye, which passes by the 
focus and denudes the static appeareance. The art of photographing life.

The lenses registrate everything through the observor´s eyes. Revealing the 
past of the future, today, the present. Afterall, the photographical clic is 
far from being extinct. The image shows a plural moment that carries on 
itself an entire story. Similar to a multiple-meaning code, the picture 
sinthetizes several infomations.

The landscape. Colloured by the sugar-cane-green, definetely incorporated 
the imaginary Man, and , yet, the real man. The image of the worker who 
walks through the long road in the midst of the canebrake, simulacrum of 
time, can be the arch that separates us from forgetness; it allows us to 
forsee surreal landscapes, even when reality is misery and ruins.

When the first sugar mill was opened in the Northeast of Brazil, "Nossa 
Senhora da Ajuda" (Mother help) was invited in to garantee the success of 
the investment and to protect the labour from such suffering souls. Those 
were hard times; it was the year of 1535. God, the one and all, hearing the 
prayers whispered in many different languages, words and intentions, 
permitted mother help to bless the investment and soon it was spread 
throughout the region. Thus, the wealth of sugar was made, and through the 
cicles of centuries, it achieved its place in the brazilian culture.

A Northern Folk Legend

They say that one day Jesus Christ was walking through a road on a hot sunny 
day, starving and very thirsty. In the middle of the road he saw a sugarcane 
plantation and decided to sit at the shade, refreshing himself chewing 
sugarcane cubes and, at last, ending his hunger. After getting satisfied he 
blessed the sugarcanes, promising that Man would have good and sweet food 
from them.
On the next day, at the same time, the devil left hell with his horns and  
tale on fire. Galloping through the same road, he ended up at the same 
plantation. At the time, though , the sugarcane released its "Fur" and the 
juice was bitter and burned the devils´s throat. He got furious and promised 
that from the sugarcane Man would extract a drink as hot as the boilers from 
hell.


That´s why, from sugarcane, one can take the sugar, blessed by God, and 
"Cachaça" , cursed by the devil.
The ambivelance of blessings and curses is long forgotten, from the times 
where popular beliefs were as common as the hot air of the cane plantation. 
New products joined the sugar and Cachaça, always responding to Man´s 
desires and needs. Nowadays the mechanization of the fields followed the 
rhythm of industrialization. The marks left by the harvesting shows the 
printings of the wheels of modern times, which now covers the footprints of  
Man.

Nevertheless, at the same place, facing a new reality, we can see funny 
looking  machines blended to the landscape of never-dying traditions from a 
distant past; the practical wisdom of the ancients, along with the 
technological culture developed by the industry. Tradition living side by 
side with innovation. At the modern trades of globalization - upgraded 
version of  old market deals?- Brazilian sugar wins over any other market in 
the world. The time wheels spins around and, as it's been for centuries, the 
wealth of sugar becomes one of Brazil greatest values.

Archive of any information, photography is the particular vehicle which 
maintains the register of remembrance and the move of not-forgetting, 
without compromising the look and the will to see - to know how to see with 
the heart.
Times have changed, Men have changed. Only the green sugarcane keeps waving 
untiringly at the wind. The pictures, silently, tell the story.