{"id":6262,"date":"2012-12-10T14:06:22","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T17:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=6262"},"modified":"2016-02-19T09:34:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T12:34:48","slug":"alemaos-lenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=6262","title":{"rendered":"Alem\u00e3o’s Lenses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Manoel<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy toil in the country, in the city?<\/em>
\nThe machine will do it for us.<\/em>
\nWhy think, imagine?<\/em>
\nThe machine will do it for us.<\/em>
\nWhy write a poem?<\/em>
\nThe machine will do it for us.<\/em>
\nWhy climb Jacob\u2019s ladder?<\/em>
\nThe machine will do it for us.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh machine, pray for us.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Litany, by Cassiano Ricardo<\/em><\/p>\n

With dramatic intonation, Seu Rodrigues recites a few verses of this poem. Not many photographers pay tribute to their camera during an interview. But 58-year old Manoel Rodrigues Moura, photographer and resident of the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> community, has a special reason to do so. Seven years ago he partially lost his vision, perhaps due to diabetes. \u201cToday the camera sees for me. I am still able to show it what I want it to do, and the camera takes it from there. I\u2019m grateful that even with this visual disability I can still work among great photographers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In front of the lens lies Alem\u00e3o, the community he has chosen to live in and to represent in his photographs. Behind the lens lives a story that began in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais. Seu Rodrigues lived there until 1979, when at 25 he decided to move to Rio de Janeiro and stay with friends at their house in the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. \u201cI started out living in extreme poverty, but the word favela didn\u2019t exist. My first job was as a servant,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photography came into his life over the radio, when he heard an advertisement for a correspondence course and decided to enroll. \u201cThat opened a tremendous horizon to me. I learned some of the tricks of photography. From there I had to keep working to get into it, but that was the kickoff.\u201d And it was. When Seu Rodrigues left his job as a servant, he used his workers\u2019 compensation money to buy a camera. Before long he was taking pictures of first communions, debutante parties, baptisms and weddings. Since then he has made his living from photography.<\/p>\n

Viva Favela and the journalist\u2019s eye<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seu Rodrigues got started in journalism through Viva Favela<\/a>, a project of the NGO Viva Rio. Viva Favela was created in 2001 as an Internet journalism portal whose content was produced by community correspondents living in favelas and on the outskirts of Rio. That year, the project began to select photographers from various neighborhoods in Rio. \u201cI grabbed a piece of paper, wrote down my name and I.D. number, and attached some pictures. Two weeks later, they called me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The experience with Viva Favela gave a new face to Rodrigues Moura\u2019s photography. Weddings and baptisms began to share space with daily life in the favela, social problems, and residents\u2019 stories. He recorded important events in the history of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, such as the flood of December 2001; the occupation of an abandoned factory in 2004<\/a>, and the\u00a0army occupation of the favela in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Imagem<\/p>\n

But he doesn\u2019t portray the favela as a place of only tragedy and violence. Through Rodrigues Moura\u2019s lens, Complexo do Alem\u00e3o has sports, parties, creativity, workers, mothers, children \u2013 an immense universe that the mainstream media has never managed to understand and disseminate. \u201cTo display the community to the world is like making a hole in the wall of prejudice, so that, quietly, society begins to see it,\u201d says Seu Rodrigues, who has taken pictures of bike trails<\/a>, street theater<\/a>, and the famous rooftop sunbathing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His work in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s favelas, particularly in Alem\u00e3o, has led to his participation in various exhibitions, such as \u201cInside the Favela\u201d in 2003; \u201cRio with Open Eyes\u201d and \u201cEco-favela\u201d in 2005; and \u201cI live in the Favela\u201d in 2006. Also in 2006 he studied at the Mar\u00e9 People\u2019s School of Photography<\/a>. Seu Rodrigues has had photos published in the newspapers O Globo, O Dia,<\/em> and Extra<\/em>, and in the magazines Onda Jovem<\/em> and La Rampa<\/em>. Of all his published work, he is most proud of the photo on exhibit in the gallery of modern art in Zurich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The community through his eyes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Manoel Rodrigues Moura\u2019s story is often indistinguishable from the story of Alem\u00e3o, a network of favelas in Rio\u2019s North Zone that he describes like no one else. \u201cThe Complexo do Alem\u00e3o is in a beautiful location, nestled among the Miseric\u00f3rdia Mountains<\/a>. From some viewpoints here you can see almost all of Rio de Janeiro,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Today, tourists and residents of Rio come to contemplate the beauty of the communities in the Miseric\u00f3rdia Mountains from the cable car<\/a>. But it wasn\u2019t always this way. Before the installation of the Pacifying Police Units (UPP<\/a>) in Alem\u00e3o, the media and broader society looked down on the community. \u201cA while ago, if I went to the Central Station and told people I lived in the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, everyone would think I must be a criminal. Today, when I say I\u2019m from the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, tons of people want to know what\u2019s going on here,\u201d explains Seu Rodrigues.<\/p>\n

However, he says, Alem\u00e3o is not yet the paradise that the government and media make it out to be, and residents are still deprived of certain rights. \u201cAs far as people displaying their weapons, things have changed a lot. But socially, nothing has changed. There is not a single school or university here. To get transportation, you have to leave the favela. All we have here is alternative transportation. We don\u2019t have basic sanitation. You see polluted ditches everywhere,\u201d he says. Pacified or not, Alem\u00e3o continues to be recorded by the lens of Seu Rodrigues, who casually downplayed his vision problem for this story.<\/p>\n

In his 1964 poem \u201cLitany,\u201d Cassiano Ricardo described the transformations that technology has caused in our daily lives. In Manoel Rodrigues Moura\u2019s life, the camera represents good and profound changes. He offers a speech of gratitude to his camera: \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for this camera, I would never get to go to the places I go, I would never be invited to participate in the things I\u2019m invited to. If it weren\u2019t for this camera I wouldn\u2019t be known by anyone. I give thanks for this camera; it\u2019s everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas \u201cWhy toil in the country, in the city? The machine will do it for us. Why think, imagine? The machine will do it for us. Why write a poem? The machine […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":6291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284,329],"tags":[681,32,504,188,37,572,103],"writer":[468],"translator":[508],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews-profiles","8":"category-solutions","9":"tag-cji","10":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-north-zone","14":"tag-photography","15":"tag-profile","16":"writer-paloma-silbar","17":"translator-rachel-fox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=6262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}