The idea for this project was born out of my frequent encounters with the almost in nite number of police seizures shown daily in the press. If, on one hand, it is a realm far from my mundane lifestyle, on the other, the overwhelming presence of these oppressive facts in our lives does not allow us to be indifferent to them.
What’s more, in being routinely exposed to these issues, we end up taking them for granted. They have ceased to shock us. This is precisely where the paradox of excess of information lies: the more we see, the less we perceive. We get used to things, we are “blinded from seeing too much.” The idea that these images own a great deal of richness in their details is based on these presumptions - In redefining the seized equipment through photographs of “assemblages” of the objects and enlarging them in formats and sizes that are unusual when dealing with this subject, I intend to highlight the most obscure and less visible aspects of these trending and daily publications.
The means I undertook to achieve this inventory of a Brazilian tragedy were enduring and complicated. The technical apparatus I used to accentuate the details of what we see on a daily basis without any manipulations – as it should be, complying with journalistic principles – was very new to me. In any case, I came across it as I searched for a procedure that would substitute the traditional analog systems and that provided me with a certain agility on set and in post-production. For most of the photographs I used a digital system that fragmented the extensive scene when capturing the image, so that the final copy could reach a high definition. However, this system was not possible for the photos involving animals, because of their movements.
At last an assignment: to negotiate with the authorities and to find a way to make these images seen as they are, as I see them myself and not as proof of something and especially not as a denouncement connected to the state’s uselessness or efficiency. Instead, seen through an artistic and personal vision of relevant quotidian facts and as a portrait of a certain Brazil. Apart from the inevitable difficulties connected to this project, dealing with the intricacies of these acquisitions was a unique and pleasurable adventure. During this experience I met with judges, policemen, auditors and secretaries of state, who were very helpful and extremely cooperative. I obviously encountered many obstacles of every kind during this journey, justifiable due to the seriousness of the subject. Nevertheless, as I leaped into this quest, I was surprised with the result of the Occurrences: by the final enlargements’ huge diversity of formats and sizes, which were not foreseen in my plans, but that ended up being constituent of this project, and by my encounter with scenes that were already in place, people and situations unusual to my universe. The apprehensions affect us all and indeed, these images do not produce solutions to the social and legal questions underlying them. As follows, I do not have an answer to offer either, other than a form of apprehension.
