Mapping Brazil - Photography: Organizations and Events

The Instituto Moreira Salles photographic archive
Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS) began forming a photographic archive in 1995, when it acquired the Masters of Brazilian Photography of the Nineteenth Century collection, followed in the same year by 44 negatives recording images of São Paulo taken between 1935 and 1937 by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who lived in the city at the time, where he taught at the newly founded University of São Paulo. From this initial group of around 2,600 images, the collection has grown to over 850,000 in 2015. With the acquisition of archives like the Gilberto Ferrez collection, IMS can now boast the most important collection of nineteenth century photography in Brazil. It also has the best collection of Brazilian photographs from the first half of the twentieth century, including the complete works of leading figures like Marcel Gautherot, Hildegard Rosenthal, Alice Brill, Carlos Moskovics and Henri Ballot, as well as a growing number of more contemporary photographers, like José Medeiros, Hans Gunter Flieg, Madalena Schwartz and Maureen Bisilliat. In 2011, IMS launched ZUM, a magazine that discusses contemporary photography, and since then it has started to systematically collect contemporary photography works. The main reason for this effort has to do with the perception of the importance of photography in the field of the arts, both formally and aesthetically and in documental terms, especially in the task of constructing and reconstructing the cultural values inherent to the country’s memory and history.

Brasiliana Fotográfica web portal
Brasiliana Fotográfica is an online space that showcases and fosters debate and reflection about photography archives, addressing them as primary sources and also as digital heritage to be preserved.

When consulting the archives, users can save the results of their research on the portal itself, returning on another occasion to wherever they left off. They can also share it on social networks.

This initiative began with the combined efforts of Fundação Biblioteca Nacional and Instituto Moreira Salles. It may yet link up with other public and private institutions from Brazil and abroad which have original archives of photographic documents about Brazil.

Museu da Imagem e do Som de São Paulo
Museu da Imagem e do Som de São Paulo (MIS), run by the São Paulo State Department of Culture, was inaugurated in 1970. It has over 200,000 items, including photographs, films, videos and posters. Alongside a regular schedule of exhibitions and film screenings, MIS puts on a range of cultural activities for different audiences and has selection processes for new artists to exhibit their work as part of its photography, film, dance and music programmes. Together with Estúdio Madalena, MIS holds an annual event called Encontro Pensamento e Reflexão na Fotografia [Thinking and Reflecting in Photography].

Pirelli / MASP photography collection
Building a representative collection of contemporary Brazilian photography and providing the conditions for its study and communication are the motivations that lie at the heart of the Pirelli / MASP photography collection. It was formed in recognition of the value of Brazilian photography and the perception of photography as a form of representation and system of knowledge.

In 1990, a joint project was started with Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, an institution with historic ties to photography, and Pirelli S. A., a company with an affinity and tradition in photography. Since then, the collection has been built up, based on the strategy of systematically putting together a representative sample of Brazilian photography – opting for being concise in terms of quantity of images – which foregrounds the photographers’ world view.

Other Brazilian institutions with important collections of photographs:

• Biblioteca Nacional
• Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP)
• Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio)
• Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC- USP)
• Fundação Pierre Verger

Festivals of photography in Brazil
Some of the principal festivals of photography in Brazil are listed below. They are essential elements in the contemporary Brazilian photography scene.

• Paraty em Foco
• FotoRio
• FestFoto
• Foto em Pauta

Visual Inclusion
Since 2004, meetings on visual inclusion have been held to divulge and promote interchange between projects that employ photography and video as a means of promoting visual literacy and social inclusion. The presentations and debates held as part of this encounter have made it a tradition at FotoRio (the International Photography Meeting of Rio de Janeiro) and have helped raise the profile of the strategies and achievements of these groups who use photography as an exercise in citizenship.

Imagens do Povo
Imagens do Povo is an organisation that works as a documentation centre, undertakes research and training, and helps get photographers from poor communities onto the labour market. Run by Observatório de Favelas since 2004, the programme combines photographic skills with social issues, recording the daily life of favelas through a critical perception that takes into account respect for human rights and local cultures.

Return to Mapping Menu