His Camera Takes Us To The World ‘We Must Preserve’

His Camera Takes Us To The World ‘We Must Preserve’

A group of Waura Indians fish in the Puilanga Lake near their village in the Upper Xingu region of Brazil's Mato Grosso state. 2005.

A group of Waura Indians fish in the Puilanga Lake near their village in the Upper Xingu region of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. 2005.

Rena Silverman, met up with the photographer Sebastiao Salgado, in New York City on Thursday and conducted a very interesting interview  with the man about his work and new exhibit; (published in NPR‘s Goats & Soda Blog).

They’re silvery and stunning — and their beauty bears a message.

Genesisis a new exhibit of more than 200 black-and-white images from the noted Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado. He wants to show us what the world and its peoples look like now, how climate change has already had an impact — and what might be lost if Earth’s climate continues changing.

His pictures will be on view at the International Center of Photography in New York City through Jan. 11. Goats and Soda is featuring four images that show parts of the world that our blog covers. We spoke with Salgado to learn more about his work.

What’s your goal with this exhibit?

My issue was to see what we must preserve in this planet. Any photo I can take to convince the authorities, to convince the companies, to convince anyone, this is the minimum I can do. In this sense, I hope that these pictures, that this show, shows a kind of state of humanity of the planet, that we cannot destroy more than we already have.

His Camera Takes Us To The World \'We Must Preserve\'

What kinds of damage have you seen?

I was working in West Papua, Indonesia, with tribes that are living in the Stone Age. When I say that, I mean all of the instruments of their work, anything they have, are made from stone. Now [their] forest is getting destroyed [by man]. For me, that is the point: We are going too fast here. We must start to rebuild what we have destroyed.

We are doing this in Brazil. In part of the show, we are showing a rain forest that we planted in Brazil. We created an institution called Instituto Terra. We planted now more than 2 million trees of more than 300 different species, all local species. We must replant.

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