{RURAIS (rural workers) – 9th Photo Exhibition}

As I previously announced two days ago, the 9th Photo Exhibition (the 1st took place at USP in São Carlos-SP-Brazil in 2019) of my project and book published in 2021 called RURAIS is already installed in the lobby of the Rectory of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), Rod. Washington Luiz, s/n – Monjolinho, São Carlos, SP-Brazil where he will remain until April 24, 2023.

There are 21 black and white photographs of rural workers from different locations in 4 Brazilian states: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul that I took in the years 2018-2021.

I am immensely grateful to Mrs. Lourdes Moraes, Chief of Staff of the Rectory and Prof. Dr. Pedro Sérgio Fadini, ProRector of Research (ProPq) at UFSCar for the invitation to set up this exhibition, for the warm welcome and for making this wonderful space available at the Rectory.
Thanking Mrs. Lourdes and Prof. Pedro, I am also respectfully thanking all the senior management at UFSCar in São Carlos, a house that was my home for 45 years.

I would be more than happy with the visit of the entire UFSCar community as well as other visitors from the cities of São Carlos and the region!

Visitation will take place from Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 19:00.

In due course, we will disclose the date and time of an opening act for the exhibition and a date/time of a possible visit guided by me.

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PHOTO: rural workers returning to their homes after a hard day’s work. Rural area of the municipality of São João Batista do Glória (MG-Brasil). 2018.

The pleasure of revisiting: The harvesters (men and women) and me.

I’m starting to revisit my collection of photographs of rural workers handling different types of crops across the country. And I do so, inspired and deeply moved after watching a few times the documentary that competed for the prize at the 2000 Cannes Festival (and of great international recognition in the following years) by the great filmmaker Agnès Varda called ‘Les glaneurs et la glaneuse’ (* )(The collectors and I). Varda considers herself, in this documentary, a ‘glaneuse’, not of harvest remains, but a ‘glaneuse’ of information, images, and stories. (*)(https://mubi.com/pt/films/the-gleaners-i).

Varda very appropriately quotes, comments and shows two large paintings on the theme of Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) “Les glaneus” (The scavengers) (1857) and “Le rappel des glaneus” (The remembrance of the scavengers) (1859) by Jules Breton (1827-1906). The criticism of these great works of art comments, among other aspects, on things that are very typical and known to rural workers who, in these activities, show themselves with their ‘broken backs, eyes fixed on the ground’ in ‘repetitive and exhausting movements imposed by this hard work: get down, pick up, get up’.

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) “Les glaneus” (1857).
“Le rappel des glaneus” (1859) by Jules Breton (1827-1906).

‘The harvesters’ (of normal harvests), in a lot, resemble the ‘pickers’ who were poor workers, but worthy like any other rural workers who were authorized by the owners or tenants of different plantations to ‘pick up’ the leftovers after the realization of the main crops to guarantee their sustenance.

The context of my photos of rural workers harvesting in the interior of Brazil is quite different from the collectors of the classic paintings shown in the documentary by Agnès Varda, but even so I decided to make comparisons since I find similarities between these images because these rural workers repeat, daily, during the harvest period, the same scenes of having their ‘backs broken, eyes fixed on the ground’ in ‘repetitive and exhausting movements imposed by this hard work: lowering , pick up, lift’ being ‘supervised’, or controlled, also, as in Millet’s work, by one or more ‘inspectors’ of the bosses.

I can say that I am also part of this story because in my childhood – along with my brothers/sisters and cousins ​​– I was a collector. My paternal grandfather and my father allowed (and encouraged) us to ‘pick up’ coffee after the normal period of the annual harvest in their small plantations. The product of this activity was sold, which yielded some money that was shared between us. It is even said that one of the cousins ​​’hidden’, surreptitiously, under the ‘skirt’ of some coffee trees, during normal harvests (in which we also actively participated), some good amounts of coffee which, later at the time of ‘ scavenger hunt’ was gallantly collected by all of us. Everything leads to the belief that both the grandfather and the father pretended that they did not know about this illicit maneuver.

photobook {.R.U.R.A.I.S.} (rural workers from Brasil)

{R.U.R.A.I.S.}

To purchase my book, contact me directly on facebook by message, or on my website https://www.antoniomozetophotography.com, or on my instagram @magic_rectangle or on Editora Origin’s website https://www.editoraorigem. com.br/

Exhibition and sales of photographs of “RURAIS”: Casa Odisseia, Al. Min. Rocha Azevedo, 463 São Paulo from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm until 11/17/21.