Fields of Altitude
BEFORE THE NEFARIOUS BLUE
Curator Diógenes Moura
The city by the sea agonizes. The inhabitants of the city by the sea look perplexed at each other: the tunnel could be invaded at any moment. Every three stray bullets a body falls. Not even in the Middle East war is like this. It’s high noon. The country groans. Copacabana does not fool anybody anymore. Kitty Paranaguá wanders the streets with her object-camera. She is afraid but she keeps going. She is suspended inside a cable car over Alemão Complex. She sees the city from the top down. The storm falls. In each of the houses below, hanging by a thread, are the lives with all the names. None of them are sure they will see the next morning. The photographer projects the real city on the face and the body of its true inhabitants, the real life. With a bird inside her head, she comes and goes. She walks trying almost not to be seen. And she writes me an email:
Thanks, Dona Joana, queen of Mata Machado. Thanks, Mr. Moisés, who moved me so much talking about your life. Thanks, Dona Jura, with your wonderful delicacies, a marvelous cook with an open heart. Thanks, Dona Jovina, who is already above us. Thanks, Gilson, who lives in the house of clocks, with your willpower and a desire to share Santa Marta with the world. Thanks, Salete, also doing an exchange work between the community and the tourists, with a strong desire to expand the world of Santa Marta’s residents. Thanks, Simone and Miguel, for opening your house. Thanks, Dona Antonia, with stories about Vidigal. Thanks, Célio, with your builder stories. Thanks, Diana, Ágata and Júlia, irreverent and good-humored girls. Thanks, Silmar, with your saints and entities. Thanks, Vicente, with your lucidity and your magic hands to bend iron”.
My God, how much passion! We are like that, even before the finger on the trigger. Even knowing that the militia will protect the offering. The offering at the crossroad. Even before the detour to Linha Vermelha. The body shakes. From the rooftop of the former wonder, you can see the sea and all the names that are unaware if they will be standing when the day breaks. The ATM explodes at Nossa Senhora da Paz Square. Here, everyone has a name, surname, desire, gender, anguish, eagerness, will to live, drive to consume. Fields of Altitude is the portrait of a woman before the portrait of the “world” she lives in, in abyss. And a portrait will always be a veredict. Photography is existence. It is blood and hope about the sunset.
