From Brazil to Qatar, Adriane de Souza’s delicate image making helps her subjects see and love themselves
Adriane de Souza grew up in Duque de Caxias, a city in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, but her family eventually settled in Qatar thanks to her father’s career in sports. His story is the dream of the poor Brazilian from the outskirts who managed to travel the world playing football. She returned to Brazil to study Social Sciences at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and at that time had no plans to be a photographer. But when searching for ways to express herself freely, a like-minded friend suggested she experimented with photography.
She toured Pilar, her neighbourhood, and without even knowing how to use a camera, she documented the people, the houses, the streets, everything she saw. This experiment brought her a lightness that until then nothing could give her. “Taking these pictures made it all mean more to me and from there my first project came as if I was going back to my place, to be reborn,” she says.
Currently living in Doha, she realises that all the connections she makes, all the ties that become strong, are with people from the Global South. In conversations with her Filipino, Somali, Libyan and Sudanese friends she feels united in many ways, including their implicit understanding that they all share the ills that the exploitation of their respective countries has caused them. "We understand the marks that have been left on the country and the people," she adds. “It’s not the need to insert the other to help you, but the need to insert the other because this will bring greater cultural richness. This is more beneficial to everyone than continuing in your own circle forever.”
“I’m creating a set of individual stories and experiences that help in the process of liberation and self-knowledge”
Souza’s pictures have since featured in the Adobe Rising Stars in 2019 and PH Museum Mobile Photography Book, won second place in Photos from the Arab World by Jotun and third place in LensCulture Journeys 2020 Single Image Awards, in addition to being exhibited in Brazil, Qatar, Russia, UAE and UK. Her two ongoing series are I Am Not My Father and Qawiya. The first looks at how masculinity is taught to men of colour by society and hopes to encourage men to overcome these toxic barriers. The second is the Arabic word for strong and a perfect adjective for women photographed by Souza.
Before Souza worked in the creative field, she didn’t have to consider the burden of living in Qatar in terms of clothing and customs. Today, when she has an idea for a photographic series, she has to think about all of these complications. As many things cannot be said openly, she must always allow her subject to interpret her vision, making the whole process more layered. When asked how the photographer sees the impact of her work on her local community she concludes:
“I realise that a lot of people don’t consider my work so deeply for me not to bring up subjects they don't want to talk about. My work talks a lot about mental health, masculinity, freedom, representativeness – these are other themes that are not discussed much where I am based. But as aesthetics and presentation are highly valued, my work has been seen and inserted in media that I had not imagined.”
Words Ode
Visit Adriane de Souza
From Brazil, With Love And Optic Games is a Nataal series spearheaded by Ode, a São Paulo-based stylist, writer and independent curator. Brazil, which has the largest black population outside the African continent, is home to a new generation of young black photographers who are creating fresh perspectives on fashion and art. This series of interviews sees Ode explore how their work both expands ideas around representation and participation and challenges Western perspectives that ignore the Global South as part of black life and diasporic conversations
Read our other stories in this series here.
Published on 11/01/2021