Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Allow me to introduce my friend, Sebastiao.

Sebastiao Salgado. Have you ever heard of him? This is one of his photographs. The English Class I am taking is about refugees. You could say that Salgado wrote the book on refugees. Yet, we don't have to read anything to feel the emotion he is trying to share with the world. Salgado, a documentary photographer, puts a picture to the things that we don't want to see. He shows the loathsome reality that exists in this world that we wish were only a movie. He shows it, and he brings it home.
Salgado's art, as shown in this photo taken in the San Ysidro, CA border-control office, gives a voice to the oppressed of the world. It is this that I, myself, will spend this semester studying in English 150. As a main source of inspiration, I will be using Salgado's book, Migrations: Humanity in Transition.
Salgado said, "I hope that the person who visits my exhibitions, and the person who comes out, are not quite the same." Thus, by exposing his art, I imagine I have the same motive. I hope that whomever reads this blog will change in some way. I hope they will have a desire to be the change that this world needs.

Works Cited

"UNICEF Special Representative Sebastiao Salgado." Changing the World with Children. UNICEF, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2010. <http://www.unicef.org/salgado/index.html>

3 comments:

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  2. Hey,I really enjoyed reading your post. I love the idea of Salgado "writing" the book with his photographs. He indeed did change the way I view these refugees and I also hope that I will be able to change others opinions on refugees or just raise awareness. I really like the picture you selected. It really says a lot. I can't imagine living an these conditions. Segaldo really is doing something great. His pictures speak volumes about the oppressed, especially this one. The only thing that I might have changed would be introducing Salgado a little more, but overall a very entertaining post.

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  3. Like you said, Salgado forces us to witness, even if only secondhand, the gruesome realities that exist in the world you and I live in. His photographs strive to persuade us to help his cause, evoking feelings of sadness and even disgust. His hope is that we will, in some small way, internalize these feelings and empathize with the harsh suffering experienced by these people. His photographs give these people an identity, as lowly as it may be. It is now up to us to raise these people up, give them meaning, give them purpose and individuality. We live on the same planet as these people, yet our worlds are astronomically different. It's time for a change.

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