Ingrid Barros uses photography as a tool to defend the traditional communities of Maranhão
Maria Firmina dos Reis was the first woman to publish a novel in Brazil. Ursula, written under the pseudonym Uma Maranhense in 1859, is considered a forerunner of the abolitionist theme in Brazilian literature, prior to the famous poetry of Castro Alves whose Navio Negreiro was published in 1880. Hailing from the state of Maranhão, Maria Firmina dos Reis also published poetry, essays, stories and puzzles in local newspapers and magazines, in addition to composing songs denouncing the evils of slavery.
Also from Maranhão, the photographer Ingrid Barros was born and raised in the interior of the state, more precisely in the region of the Baixada where there is a predominance of quilombola - settlements that are considered the cradle of musicality and popular traditions and of enchantments of freshwater and salt water. She went on to go to law school and then began her militancy in defence of the territorial rights of traditional peoples and communities. This led her to begin to see photography as an instrument helping her to communicate this urgent struggle.
In the same way Maria Firmina dos Reis wielded literature, Barros understood in photography that in the early stages of colonisation, they had their images, bodies and subjectivities represented through a unique history that is violent and marginalised. “My attempt is to produce images that give the possibility of building a new imaginary and new narratives through the sensitivity of existence. More real, abundant, affectionate, honest and true,” Barros says.
“My attempt is to produce images that give the possibility of new narratives through the sensitivity of existence”
Maranhão has a very strong popular and religious culture which has been largely documented by white people from other localities, sometimes launching a folklorised view of local populations. Thus, this impact she sees not only from an individual perspective but from a collective place, too.
"I try to deliver in photography a singular subjectivity which is also constituted in a collective memory and action of retaking identities," she explains. For this reason, when Barros thinks of Latin America, she reiterates that imaginary is image and when she thinks about this image, what comes to her mind are all the colours, textures, sounds and senses of an insurgent continent composed of the autonomy of bodies and territories. After all, there is no way to talk about Latin America and Brazil without mentioning the struggles and articulations of native peoples, the countryside, the waters and the forests, who are shaping new political possibilities for collective organisation.
Barros’ honest yet still poetic images follows those of other new black artists in Maranhão who have been producing new visualities from the inside out in an anti-colonial logic. When asked what strategies make her challenge the seeming limitations of her locality, she concludes:
“Before a limitation from a global perspective, there is the limitation from a local perspective, to think about artistic/documentary making and the visibility of it far from the south-south-east axis of Brazil. The internet generates this kind of connection and the possibility to expand the borders so that your work arrives elsewhere without going through the processes of the museum world, galleries and the like, from which I am far away to this day. People are coming to me and things are happening, spaces are opening up, such as being published in a foreign magazine like Nataal. How did you get to me? Maybe that's it. The existence of a curatorial gaze shifted to others places, for other narratives.”
Words Ode
Visit Ingrid Barros
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 27/01/2021