This short-documentary is about the creative process of one of the biggest art projects I’ve ever made for my home town, Brasília-Brazil.
I won’t take too long here because the documentary, which is subtitled in English, already speaks for itself.
Roughly translating the project could be called “The Face of Brasília” where 50 people between artists, entrepreneurs, pioneers of the city, journalists and famous street workers were selected by me and my staff to be photographed as a representation of the city in their respective fields.
The basic concept of this project was to photograph those people who helped this political and administrative capital become a real livable city, building its cultural particularities and building Brasilia’s self-identity since its first 50 years.
Before starting the project at full-speed, I was knocking on doors and inviting people on my own to be photographed by myself in a form of cultural inventory of the city. Since this moment, I realized that one of the best ways to do any art project is to create based on collaboration. The more people I photographed the easier was for the next invitees to accept the invitation. This was clearly noticed when people started to invite themselves to participate in the project and it was also easily perceived when the staff behind the making-of started to grow.
A couple of sad things also happened during the creation of this project, at the beginning, I was photographing some important pioneers that helped build the capital of Brasil 50 years ago and some of them passed away during the exhibition. Men and women that bravely built my city and my art project, weren’t able to see its conclusion in life.
I believe that any creative production is the artist passive-income stream, so based on this premise, I will probably make a second edition of this project with new exclusive photos and texts and since I’m now living in Montreal-CA, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to make a “La Face de Montréal” in the future. Right?
Thanks for reading it!