World Food Books

Tommaso Protti
Terra Vermelha

2023, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 28 x 21 cm
Published by Void / Reykjavík—Athens

$89.00 - Out of stock

The Amazon Rainforest—often referred to as 'Lungs of our Planet'—has long been idealised as a dense, green expanse and a pristine sanctuary inhabited by isolated tribes. Terra Vermelha, the culmination of 10-years’ work by photographer Tommaso Protti, presents a raw and unfiltered, alternative portrait of the region. Depicting fields ablaze, the dark river as a conduit for cocaine trafficking and urban areas plagued by violence—the images in the book depict a dystopia, dispelling such romanticised notions.

“As I sat in my hotel room in Marabá, a city in the Amazon state of Parà, Jornal Nacional – Brazil’s flagship news program – transmitted images of the country’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro: “The indigenous in their reservations are like animals in a zoo,” he said. It was November 2018. […] It seemed like a threat, an omen of bad times ahead. I felt that the slow-motion social and environmental breakdown I had seen in the previous years in the Amazon was about to get worse.”

“Deforestation, unregulated development, pollution. All of these scenarios are driven by the same forces; poverty, weak institutions, corruption and savage self-interest. More than in other places, in the Amazon region it becomes clear that land is worth more than human life. And on the path towards the destruction of the planet, the first and closest step for mankind is still its own annihilation… The violence consuming the Brazilian Amazon affects us all and sometimes we are even the unknowing perpetrators of it.”

Tommaso Protti (Italy, 1986) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Tommaso Protti has documented the intersecting social and environmental crises plaguing the Amazonian states of Brazil, where the photographer has been based for almost a decade. He started his career as a photographer in 2011 after graduating in Political Science and International Relations. Since then, he has devoted himself on creating his own long-term projects focusing on themes such as crime, the environment, and rural conflict. His work has been featured in global publications and exhibited worldwide.

“This is the Brazilian Amazon today, where indigenous communities are fighting for survival in the face of rampant deforestation. What follows is a dense, disorientating and elliptical reportage that riddles through a conflict-stricken hinterland, unravelling – in the dead of night – stories about savage land-grabs, forest fires and brutal gang murders. […] Needless to say, few publishers could have taken us into the Amazon’s heart of chaos as nightmarishly as Void have.”—Alessandro Merola, 1000 Words

File under: Tommaso Protti Void / Reykjavík—Athens Photography Ecology / Earth Ecology Crime / Violence

Wols
Photograph

1978, German
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 220 pages, 20 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Schirmer & Mosel / Munich Ludwig Museum / Cologne Schirmer Mosel

$80.00 - Out of stock