Ricardo Ribeiro
Puxirum (Series)
DESCRIPTION
Puxirum is a long term project started in 2016. It takes place in São Pedro, a 120 households community, in the heart of the Amazon Forest, 10 hours by boat from Santarém, the nearest town.
In São Pedro time and space have a different dimension. Nature is immense and dictates the rhythm of life, the ribeirinho (the river man) is a fragile drifter. Time is his ally, it goes by gently, at the speed of the need for food mostly; it allows plenty of room for a slow, very often intermittent chat, for simple contemplation of the uncertain or even for the mere being.
Major changes largely deriving from the reasonably successful programs for transfer of wealth of the last two decades and from the diffusion of information can be perceived all over; yet this is a place still virtually isolated from “modern Brazil”, where life has a pace of its own, governed by the forces of nature and not by the demands of capitalism.
Puxirum provides a feeling of life in suspension, waiting to happen. It is an exploration of this time and space so often inhabited by the ribeirinho and yet so fleeting for the most of us.
AUTHOR
Bio
Ricardo Ribeiro is a photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. Having worked for 15 years as a
lawyer, he dropped his practice in early 2015 and embraced photography as a profession. On
2016 he concluded the General Studies Program of the International Center of Photography in
New York City. His current project "Puxirum" explores the time and space inhabited by the ribeirinho (the river man) of São Pedro, an isolated community in Central Amazon. In connection with such project, Ricardo has been assisting the community with the restoration and reorganization of the collective archive of images of São Pedro. Further, Ricardo has been working in partnership with local leaderships and specialized NGOs in an attempt to organize locals under the form of an association for the harvesting and commercialization of fruits so as to increment families' income, and to replace current expensive oil-based power generators by solar power technology.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 “Sometimes We Talk” for Linha da Cultura, São Paulo Subway, São Paulo - SP, Brazil.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016 “Sometimes We Talk” for Another Kind of Paradise, International Center of Photography, New York, NY
2017 “Puxirum" for Em Construção, Valongo Festival Internacional da Imagem, Santos - SP, Brazil
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