In state of Minas Gerais, southeast of Brazil, it is not uncommon for a mountain to send some kind of message and the people who live among mountain ranges have their essence ingrained in their culture and are able to hear. Brazilian singer and song writer José Miguel Wisnik, in his recent book Machining of the World – Drummond and Mining (2018), suggests a dialogue between Brazilian writer Guimaraes Rosa and Brazilian poet Carlos Drumond de Andrade, born in Minas Gerais in the city of Itabira. In the mountains have a voice, both in O Recado do Morro and in the acclaimed poem A Máquina do Mundo, because they are a reservoir of immeasurable collective human experiences. It is not by chance that Brazilian mining is leitmotiv in the work of Drummond, who spent part of his youth with open windows to the inaugural scenario of the country’s mineral misfortune: Pico do Cauê. For the poet was perhaps the main voice to echo the cry emitted by the groups that were already expected future victims of the incipient history of national mineral extraction. This basic text was the compass for curator and photographer Rodrigo Zeferino for a special space dedicated to the territory of Minas at FestFoto 2020 within the exhibition core dedicated to territories. Bringing together works by photographers Julia Pontés, Pedro David and João Castilho, as well as Rodrigo Zeferino himself, the video exhibition takes us to the paths between mountains, predatory extraction, life diversions and the inevitable hole resulting from the extraction of wealth, which in this exhibition it shows itself in different layers of nature and human works.

13. FestFoto Brazil – International Festival of Photography of Porto Alegre
FestFoto 2020 – Digital