Paraty in Focus 2011

A few months ago, was the site of Cosac Naify buying some books and read this wonderful interview reproduce below. On the occasion of the launch of the book "Marked" , the photographer Claudia Andujar, photographer and critic Juan Esteves made ​​a photo essay on the book and an interview with Andujar to the publisher's site.

With the authorization of the interviewer, following the full interview. Also, be sure to read the article ethics and aesthetics of Claudia Andujar .

Photo: Juan Esteves | photographer Claudia Andujar, August 2009

* Interview originally published on the website of Cosac Naify.

In August, the photographer Juan Esteves visited the home of Claudia Andujar, in Sao Paulo, to talk about Tagged, photographer of the new book that reveals a longstanding concern: the Yanomami Indians, with whom he spent extended periods in the 1970s and 1980s to, along with two doctors, to survey the state of health of this population. As she says in the interview below, helped work on the demarcation of indigenous lands and revealed at the same time, a long way geographically and spiritually, as noted by Esteves.

*

Juan Esteves - In his text "circumstances" in introducing Tagged you make an explicit reference to his childhood in Europe, the family issue, and how it affected his photographic work and your choice for minorities. I could talk more about that?

Claudia Andujar - My world view is on this. It was a trauma, that to me is very strong. My childhood was very difficult and lonely. My mother left us when I was seven and I was with my father, who was not much company. It was as if they did not exist. He had a lonely life even. Although my mother had married again, I could not go live with it. I mean, legally, I could not. There was also a political issue ...

We are at war Romania and Hungary was under control ...

I was born in Switzerland, home of my mother. I carried a baby to Transylvania, the place where she lived with my father. I grew up in the city of Oradea, or Nagyvárad in Hungarian.

And the separation? How did you handle it right then?

When they split I live with my father, but I was very unhappy with it. At one point the judges decided that I should not stay with him and put me in a Catholic boarding school run by nuns. Depending on who dominated Oradea, religion alternated between the Greek Orthodox or Catholic. Soon after, the boarding school closed because of war. That was in 1944 and had an enormous political turmoil. The Germans entered the city, Hungary had joined them. We were a strong climate of war, bombings of the Allies and the Russians. I ended up returning home to my mother as a refugee.

And his father?

The Jews were isolated in ghettos. My mother thought I had to hide and I was out of town. One day my father left the ghetto to me. He apologized in tears for not being a good father, cried for not having followed me over ... and gone! I have never forgotten this day. The Nazis were shipping Jews to Auschwitz in the fields of Poland. And I thought I had to do something, wanted to save my father, my whole family, my friends wanted to save it all. Never saw them again. I have a feeling of guilt today for failing to do something. Why not save them. With the arrival of the Russians, my mother ran away with me Nagyvárad. I learned later that my father lived only two months in camp, marked by a number tattooed on his arm. He died of typhoid fever, thrown into a mass grave with many others.

I imagine that the issue of concern for minorities, that you carry to this day as a photographer and as a militant, was already strong at this time.

Before I take refuge in Switzerland, attended a Jewish school and lived in a Catholic boarding school. My world, essentially, was my Jewish friends, school mates. All brought to Auschwitz. I felt very helpless, this struck me much, I wanted to do something and could not. My involvement with minority groups, such as the Yanomami, comes from. Even today it touches me deeply. I wanted to save people.

As you left the war?

We fled Hungary at the end of World War II and my mother took me to Switzerland. After two years, an uncle, my father's brother, invited me to go to New York, himself a refugee from war. I left Europe with fifteen years, with seventeen, I left my uncle's house and went to live alone. I rented a room in the Bronx, worked for a living and studying at night.

Have thought about photography?

Studying "humanities." I had no idea yet what I wanted to be. As a child, wrote poetry, I felt the need to externalize, as was always alone. In youth, influenced by the great museums of New York City, began to paint. One of my favorite artists was Staël [Nicolas de Staël, 1914-1955]. Eighteen I married a Spanish refugee, Julio Andujar. I worked as a saleswoman at Macy's, a department store, then went to work as a secretary in a company. My marriage did not last long, and as he was a refugee, he joined the army in order to stay in the U.S. and acquire U.S. citizenship, and as a soldier, was brought to Korea. When he returned, after a few years, we parted. Then I went to work as a guide to the UN.

And how did you come to Brazil?

My mother left Europe and came to live in Brazil. I decided to visit her and ended up in Sao Paulo. Brazil has fascinated me, the people were communicative, I felt at home. At this time no idea of ​​the Indian question, which only came to know back in the 1960s.

As this was the beginning of Brazil?

I continued with my painting brought from the United States, but had a strong interest across the country. I wanted to approach and meet the Brazilian people, space, nature. I started traveling the coast, to live with the caiçaras. To survive was teaching English. She lived alone in an apartment on Roosevelt Square in Sao Paulo. Then I started traveling around South America, Peru and Bolivia.

Were you looking for the Indians? He then started shooting?

I was not looking for the Indians, but by the time I found indigenous people, I was interested in them. I bought a Rolleiflex camera and started shooting first in Bolivia. Meanwhile, working in São Paulo, to travel. Indians still got my records in 1958, three years after arriving in Brazil. I forgot completely abstract painting and I started to feel attracted to the people, by communication through the camera.

And how did a professional photographer?

I made important friendships in Sao Paulo and show my work to people like the architect Michel Arnould, the art teacher Pietro Maria Bardi, Darcy Ribeiro ... suggested that I look Brazilian Indians. "Go to Karajá," he said. And so I went to Bananal Island by bus to reach the Araguaia. Navigating along the Araguaia River, found the so-called "prostitutes", prostitutes who lived in the river boats. He liked to talk with them. I landed in Sao Felix do Araguaia to go to the village Santa Isabel, Karajá Indians on the island of Bananal. I have yet unpublished images of Karajá.

And the first published photographs?

I tried the magazine O Cruzeiro, and as they were not interested in the photographs went to New York. I showed it to Edward Steichen, curator of photography at MoMA that time. He liked and bought some for the museum's collection. I also went to Life magazine and they liked it and published eight pages of Karajá Indians. Time magazine also became interested. I returned to Brazil and Claudia tried the magazine, the group in April. No luck again. I think I was half broken down in Brazil on behalf of the subject.

In New York, I met the photographer George Love, who took me to meet and hear from other photographers. After I came back to Brazil, he decided to come too. We met in Pará and made a six-month journey through the Amazon, Peru and Bolivia. Then we live together, right here where I live so far (in the Pine Street San Carlos), in Sao Paulo.

Have you ever had a marginal decline by themes ...

My issues were always marginal. A story that I love was on the northeastern migrants in Sao Paulo. I even follow some of them on his return to the Northeast, traveling by train.

Back to the Indians. How do you, as well as a photographer, becomes a militant of the indigenous cause in Brazil?

In the 1960s I was on my own for the Bororo and Kayapo Xicrin-Pará, among others. Not felt only curiosity, but was looking for an identity. The Bororo I met in Perigara in Mato Grosso, were abandoned, surrounded by farmers. They were dying, was one of the saddest things I saw in my life.

In 1965, as a photojournalist, worked as a freelancer for the magazine Reality and in 1970 I was invited to participate in the special edition on Amazon. But the indigenous issue was still a taboo, because it was seen as an impediment to progress, and only spoke of the integration of the Amazon. In the end, I did what I asked ... and they have not asked. Enjoyed a certain freedom of work. I started by Pará, clicking off the ground all sorts of people, surrounded by their horizons. George immortalized the great waters of the Amazon, from the air. In the meantime, I visited the Jari Project, got involved with the cleared land of Ludwig [American billionaire Daniel Ludwig], who wanted to get there a monoculture of eucalyptus for pulp production.

When I arrived at the Rio Negro region, learned of the death of a Salesian priest in Maturacá in the Amazon. I could not get information about death, but once I discovered the Yanomami. In back, four months later, I submitted my stuff to the office of Reality and they were enchanted with the Yanomami. They put a beautiful young woman on the cover and six pages in the magazine. They were beautiful, healthy Indians.

There was a reproach in the magazine?

The publisher did not want to show Indians mistreated. It was a time of dictatorship, ruled inhibition and unprepared to address the issue. The motto of the government was "integration and development", and the military went to Amazon to open roads and occupy the "empty". There was also a growing censorship in the media - so much so that shortly after the special edition of Amazon out, professional team of Reality resigned or were fired. The publication lasted over a year and a bit with his new team and closed. It was no longer what it was. So I walked away from photojournalism.

How did you handle it then?

Not wanting to be more photojournalistic. I wanted to do a work with the Yanomami in the long term. I got two grants from the Guggenheim Foundation in New York to develop a work that began to make sense. I spent four years working on these grants. Then I got another scholarship from FAPESP. I tried to deepen their understanding of their culture, their rituals followed, wanted to understand these people. I got to spend a year in the village. I started researching photography further to represent that absorbed. I did some research with light, with color. At that time already worked with 35 mm lens.

And the militants?

I saw the consequences of contact with the Yanomami "civilized", which began with the construction of the Northern Perimeter Highway. There were epidemics, malaria, measles. I made long trips to places hit by the epidemic, saw the deaths happening. I understand that the defense of territorial integrity was essential for them to continue living. It changed my outlook on life. In the South, movements were founded in defense of the Indians, and in 1977, FUNAI me out of the Yanomami area, thought I was a spy against the government's plans.

With the ban to continue my work, I was forced to return to Sao Paulo. I was very angry and frustrated and I joined the Pro-Indian movement. The friendships made there opened a hope of getting recognition from the government of Yanomami lands. Thus was born the CCPY, Committee for Creation of the Yanomami Park, the coordination of which I took. Virtually stopped shooting.

Today, nearly forty years after this move, you think you fulfill your mission? As a photographer and as a militant of a cause?

The cause Yanomami became the reason of my life. It was a great effort to fight for the demarcation of land and start a health project, raise funds to combat the invasion of miners on Indian land, a land rich in gold. Thus passed more than twenty years.

Currently, with the return of the mines, the diseases are coming back, and health work is practically stopped. There are many interests involved. Funasa [National Health Foundation] gives no further account of the situation. There are many rumors in Roraima, an ancient bullshit that the mortality of the Indians is linked to the practice of infanticide. All this not to admit that the service is not adequate. The Indians are asking health authorities in Brasilia, to create a Department of Indigenous health directly linked to the Ministry of Health

The picture books that relate this experience gain more importance? Not only from the human point of view, the revelation of an aesthetic, but the exposure of serious problems?

I hope to put the various aspects for those who want to better understand the story, which has two sides: the ethical and aesthetic side. A consequence is the other. I need to talk and resolve this conversation in ways that occur to me, in search of their own language.

How many images do you think is?

Calculations have more than one hundred thousand images. Of these, think about sixty per cent are those of the Yanomami. I'm thinking of leaving digitized images available to the Socio-Environmental Institute, which in 2009 incorporated the work with the Yanomami for their projects. Already the Red Gallery has an important role to continue to show the work publicly, in a different way.

We still have space for photography engaged in Brazil? Your "tagged" envision a better future?

I have no doubt that the dream and engagement are critical. Especially if the respect for life becomes a native language. Creativity is an endless road, especially when we think of the new techniques. I hope that in the visual arts and arts in general, continue to flourish languages ​​and engaged with content. The technique itself is fascinating, but not enough to create a lasting dialogue. Tagged The book grew out of an ideal, which became, with the passage of time, a conceptual work. My view, and those who accompanied me on these long trips, was to save lives.

Publish your book now, after more than sixty years marked those other Jews of his childhood, is a redemption? Do you think it has found peace with herself?

I was co-founder of CCPY, fought for fifteen years to get the Brazilian government to recognize the right of the Yanomami people to their traditional lands, which happened in 1993. In 1981, we began to put on foot the health bill, even with financial constraints and few professionals prepared to face the challenge of working in the field and tackle difficult situations. The policy of the State of Roraima has created many obstacles and challenges to overcome. It was a kick in a winding path that up until now is struggling. There were moments of great hope and despair of others. The book, which is the memory of that struggle, led me, among other things, to introspection. I confess that at the time, my participation in the health project, with photographs of identification of the Indians, was to attend only to that project, on behalf of a cause. Only years later, mentalizei the importance of that early work and made the connection with my own story. The weight and the stigma of being labeled part of my life, my childhood. Have shown for the first scored in the 27th Biennial [2006] was important. Having the opportunity to publish the book is another phase of a long therapy.

Sociabilize:

A few months ago, was the site of Cosac Naify buying some books and read this wonderful interview reproduce below. On the occasion of the launch of the book "Marked" , the photographer Claudia Andujar, photographer and critic Juan Esteves made ​​a photo essay on the book and an interview with Andujar to the publisher's site.

With the authorization of the interviewer, following the full interview. Also, be sure to read the article ethics and aesthetics of Claudia Andujar .

Photo: Juan Esteves | photographer Claudia Andujar, August 2009

* Interview originally published on the website of Cosac Naify.

In August, the photographer Juan Esteves visited the home of Claudia Andujar, in Sao Paulo, to talk about Tagged, photographer of the new book that reveals a longstanding concern: the Yanomami Indians, with whom he spent extended periods in the 1970s and 1980s to, along with two doctors, to survey the state of health of this population. As she says in the interview below, helped work on the demarcation of indigenous lands and revealed at the same time, a long way geographically and spiritually, as noted by Esteves.

*

Juan Esteves - In his text "circumstances" in introducing Tagged you make an explicit reference to his childhood in Europe, the family issue, and how it affected his photographic work and your choice for minorities. I could talk more about that?

Claudia Andujar - My world view is on this. It was a trauma, that to me is very strong. My childhood was very difficult and lonely. My mother left us when I was seven and I was with my father, who was not much company. It was as if they did not exist. He had a lonely life even. Although my mother had married again, I could not go live with it. I mean, legally, I could not. There was also a political issue ...

We are at war Romania and Hungary was under control ...

I was born in Switzerland, home of my mother. I carried a baby to Transylvania, the place where she lived with my father. I grew up in the city of Oradea, or Nagyvárad in Hungarian.

And the separation? How did you handle it right then?

When they split I live with my father, but I was very unhappy with it. At one point the judges decided that I should not stay with him and put me in a Catholic boarding school run by nuns. Depending on who dominated Oradea, religion alternated between the Greek Orthodox or Catholic. Soon after, the boarding school closed because of war. That was in 1944 and had an enormous political turmoil. The Germans entered the city, Hungary had joined them. We were a strong climate of war, bombings of the Allies and the Russians. I ended up returning home to my mother as a refugee.

And his father?

The Jews were isolated in ghettos. My mother thought I had to hide and I was out of town. One day my father left the ghetto to me. He apologized in tears for not being a good father, cried for not having followed me over ... and gone! I have never forgotten this day. The Nazis were shipping Jews to Auschwitz in the fields of Poland. And I thought I had to do something, wanted to save my father, my whole family, my friends wanted to save it all. Never saw them again. I have a feeling of guilt today for failing to do something. Why not save them. With the arrival of the Russians, my mother ran away with me Nagyvárad. I learned later that my father lived only two months in camp, marked by a number tattooed on his arm. He died of typhoid fever, thrown into a mass grave with many others.

I imagine that the issue of concern for minorities, that you carry to this day as a photographer and as a militant, was already strong at this time.

Before I take refuge in Switzerland, attended a Jewish school and lived in a Catholic boarding school. My world, essentially, was my Jewish friends, school mates. All brought to Auschwitz. I felt very helpless, this struck me much, I wanted to do something and could not. My involvement with minority groups, such as the Yanomami, comes from. Even today it touches me deeply. I wanted to save people.

As you left the war?

We fled Hungary at the end of World War II and my mother took me to Switzerland. After two years, an uncle, my father's brother, invited me to go to New York, himself a refugee from war. I left Europe with fifteen years, with seventeen, I left my uncle's house and went to live alone. I rented a room in the Bronx, worked for a living and studying at night.

Have thought about photography?

Studying "humanities." I had no idea yet what I wanted to be. As a child, wrote poetry, I felt the need to externalize, as was always alone. In youth, influenced by the great museums of New York City, began to paint. One of my favorite artists was Staël [Nicolas de Staël, 1914-1955]. Eighteen I married a Spanish refugee, Julio Andujar. I worked as a saleswoman at Macy's, a department store, then went to work as a secretary in a company. My marriage did not last long, and as he was a refugee, he joined the army in order to stay in the U.S. and acquire U.S. citizenship, and as a soldier, was brought to Korea. When he returned, after a few years, we parted. Then I went to work as a guide to the UN.

And how did you come to Brazil?

My mother left Europe and came to live in Brazil. I decided to visit her and ended up in Sao Paulo. Brazil has fascinated me, the people were communicative, I felt at home. At this time no idea of ​​the Indian question, which only came to know back in the 1960s.

As this was the beginning of Brazil?

I continued with my painting brought from the United States, but had a strong interest across the country. I wanted to approach and meet the Brazilian people, space, nature. I started traveling the coast, to live with the caiçaras. To survive was teaching English. She lived alone in an apartment on Roosevelt Square in Sao Paulo. Then I started traveling around South America, Peru and Bolivia.

Were you looking for the Indians? He then started shooting?

I was not looking for the Indians, but by the time I found indigenous people, I was interested in them. I bought a Rolleiflex camera and started shooting first in Bolivia. Meanwhile, working in São Paulo, to travel. Indians still got my records in 1958, three years after arriving in Brazil. I forgot completely abstract painting and I started to feel attracted to the people, by communication through the camera.

And how did a professional photographer?

I made important friendships in Sao Paulo and show my work to people like the architect Michel Arnould, the art teacher Pietro Maria Bardi, Darcy Ribeiro ... suggested that I look Brazilian Indians. "Go to Karajá," he said. And so I went to Bananal Island by bus to reach the Araguaia. Navigating along the Araguaia River, found the so-called "prostitutes", prostitutes who lived in the river boats. He liked to talk with them. I landed in Sao Felix do Araguaia to go to the village Santa Isabel, Karajá Indians on the island of Bananal. I have yet unpublished images of Karajá.

And the first published photographs?

I tried the magazine O Cruzeiro, and as they were not interested in the photographs went to New York. I showed it to Edward Steichen, curator of photography at MoMA that time. He liked and bought some for the museum's collection. I also went to Life magazine and they liked it and published eight pages of Karajá Indians. Time magazine also became interested. I returned to Brazil and Claudia tried the magazine, the group in April. No luck again. I think I was half broken down in Brazil on behalf of the subject.

In New York, I met the photographer George Love, who took me to meet and hear from other photographers. After I came back to Brazil, he decided to come too. We met in Pará and made a six-month journey through the Amazon, Peru and Bolivia. Then we live together, right here where I live so far (in the Pine Street San Carlos), in Sao Paulo.

Have you ever had a marginal decline by themes ...

My issues were always marginal. A story that I love was on the northeastern migrants in Sao Paulo. I even follow some of them on his return to the Northeast, traveling by train.

Back to the Indians. How do you, as well as a photographer, becomes a militant of the indigenous cause in Brazil?

In the 1960s I was on my own for the Bororo and Kayapo Xicrin-Pará, among others. Not felt only curiosity, but was looking for an identity. The Bororo I met in Perigara in Mato Grosso, were abandoned, surrounded by farmers. They were dying, was one of the saddest things I saw in my life.

In 1965, as a photojournalist, worked as a freelancer for the magazine Reality and in 1970 I was invited to participate in the special edition on Amazon. But the indigenous issue was still a taboo, because it was seen as an impediment to progress, and only spoke of the integration of the Amazon. In the end, I did what I asked ... and they have not asked. Enjoyed a certain freedom of work. I started by Pará, clicking off the ground all sorts of people, surrounded by their horizons. George immortalized the great waters of the Amazon, from the air. In the meantime, I visited the Jari Project, got involved with the cleared land of Ludwig [American billionaire Daniel Ludwig], who wanted to get there a monoculture of eucalyptus for pulp production.

When I arrived at the Rio Negro region, learned of the death of a Salesian priest in Maturacá in the Amazon. I could not get information about death, but once I discovered the Yanomami. In back, four months later, I submitted my stuff to the office of Reality and they were enchanted with the Yanomami. They put a beautiful young woman on the cover and six pages in the magazine. They were beautiful, healthy Indians.

There was a reproach in the magazine?

The publisher did not want to show Indians mistreated. It was a time of dictatorship, ruled inhibition and unprepared to address the issue. The motto of the government was "integration and development", and the military went to Amazon to open roads and occupy the "empty". There was also a growing censorship in the media - so much so that shortly after the special edition of Amazon out, professional team of Reality resigned or were fired. The publication lasted over a year and a bit with his new team and closed. It was no longer what it was. So I walked away from photojournalism.

How did you handle it then?

Not wanting to be more photojournalistic. I wanted to do a work with the Yanomami in the long term. I got two grants from the Guggenheim Foundation in New York to develop a work that began to make sense. I spent four years working on these grants. Then I got another scholarship from FAPESP. I tried to deepen their understanding of their culture, their rituals followed, wanted to understand these people. I got to spend a year in the village. I started researching photography further to represent that absorbed. I did some research with light, with color. At that time already worked with 35 mm lens.

And the militants?

I saw the consequences of contact with the Yanomami "civilized", which began with the construction of the Northern Perimeter Highway. There were epidemics, malaria, measles. I made long trips to places hit by the epidemic, saw the deaths happening. I understand that the defense of territorial integrity was essential for them to continue living. It changed my outlook on life. In the South, movements were founded in defense of the Indians, and in 1977, FUNAI me out of the Yanomami area, thought I was a spy against the government's plans.

With the ban to continue my work, I was forced to return to Sao Paulo. I was very angry and frustrated and I joined the Pro-Indian movement. The friendships made there opened a hope of getting recognition from the government of Yanomami lands. Thus was born the CCPY, Committee for Creation of the Yanomami Park, the coordination of which I took. Virtually stopped shooting.

Today, nearly forty years after this move, you think you fulfill your mission? As a photographer and as a militant of a cause?

The cause Yanomami became the reason of my life. It was a great effort to fight for the demarcation of land and start a health project, raise funds to combat the invasion of miners on Indian land, a land rich in gold. Thus passed more than twenty years.

Currently, with the return of the mines, the diseases are coming back, and health work is practically stopped. There are many interests involved. Funasa [National Health Foundation] gives no further account of the situation. There are many rumors in Roraima, an ancient bullshit that the mortality of the Indians is linked to the practice of infanticide. All this not to admit that the service is not adequate. The Indians are asking health authorities in Brasilia, to create a Department of Indigenous health directly linked to the Ministry of Health

The picture books that relate this experience gain more importance? Not only from the human point of view, the revelation of an aesthetic, but the exposure of serious problems?

I hope to put the various aspects for those who want to better understand the story, which has two sides: the ethical and aesthetic side. A consequence is the other. I need to talk and resolve this conversation in ways that occur to me, in search of their own language.

How many images do you think is?

Calculations have more than one hundred thousand images. Of these, think about sixty per cent are those of the Yanomami. I'm thinking of leaving digitized images available to the Socio-Environmental Institute, which in 2009 incorporated the work with the Yanomami for their projects. Already the Red Gallery has an important role to continue to show the work publicly, in a different way.

We still have space for photography engaged in Brazil? Your "tagged" envision a better future?

I have no doubt that the dream and engagement are critical. Especially if the respect for life becomes a native language. Creativity is an endless road, especially when we think of the new techniques. I hope that in the visual arts and arts in general, continue to flourish languages ​​and engaged with content. The technique itself is fascinating, but not enough to create a lasting dialogue. Tagged The book grew out of an ideal, which became, with the passage of time, a conceptual work. My view, and those who accompanied me on these long trips, was to save lives.

Publish your book now, after more than sixty years marked those other Jews of his childhood, is a redemption? Do you think it has found peace with herself?

I was co-founder of CCPY, fought for fifteen years to get the Brazilian government to recognize the right of the Yanomami people to their traditional lands, which happened in 1993. In 1981, we began to put on foot the health bill, even with financial constraints and few professionals prepared to face the challenge of working in the field and tackle difficult situations. The policy of the State of Roraima has created many obstacles and challenges to overcome. It was a kick in a winding path that up until now is struggling. There were moments of great hope and despair of others. The book, which is the memory of that struggle, led me, among other things, to introspection. I confess that at the time, my participation in the health project, with photographs of identification of the Indians, was to attend only to that project, on behalf of a cause. Only years later, mentalizei the importance of that early work and made the connection with my own story. The weight and the stigma of being labeled part of my life, my childhood. Have shown for the first scored in the 27th Biennial [2006] was important. Having the opportunity to publish the book is another phase of a long therapy.

Sociabilize: