[Scpg] In Love With My Planet

Sun Apr 21 08:05:33 PDT 2013

In Love With My Planet

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Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas - Contact Press Images 
from "Genesis" (Taschen, 2013)

Bats on tamarind trees in the Berenty Reserve in Madagascar, 2010.

Interview by DOMINIQUE BROWNING
Published: April 20, 2013

Dominique Browning spoke with Sebastião Salgado, 
the documentary photographer and author, about 
the inspiration for his forthcoming book “Genesis.”

Multimedia

<http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/04/20/opinion/sunday/20130421_EXPOSURES-ss.html?ref=sunday>
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<http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/04/20/opinion/sunday/20130421_EXPOSURES-ss.html?ref=sunday> 
Slide Show

<http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/04/20/opinion/sunday/20130421_EXPOSURES-ss.html?ref=sunday>Genesis

These beautiful photographs are so different from 
your previous work. Tell me about that.

They are different, but in the end, they come 
around to the same place. They have the same 
message. We are living in a very special moment, 
when the effect of everything we are doing to our 
world is accelerating. If we do not pay attention 
now, we will be facing catastrophe. A big red 
light should be blinking in all our brains.

What was your state of mind when you began this project?

I worked on my last book, “Migrations,” for many 
years. What I saw was a human disaster unfolding 
in front of me. I was very close to so many 
deaths. It was a very sad, very violent time.

And I felt all of it in my body, in my mind. I was becoming quite ill.

At the same time my parents were also becoming 
very old. They asked me to return to our farm in 
Brazil. This is where I was born, and where I 
grew up  in a paradise. We grew beautiful food, 
we swam in the rivers, we watched amazing 
animals, we rode horses; the forests that covered 
our land were healthy and gorgeous.

When I returned, I was shocked by what I saw. It 
was not the same place. Not just my farm, the 
entire region. More than 70 percent of our region 
was covered by the forest when I was growing up; 
by the time I returned, it was a fraction of its 
size. Our farm was in an even worse condition. We lost so much.

Your country is the same. Look at the incredible 
forests you have in Colorado, in the West. It is 
disappearing. Look at what you are losing. We are destroying our planet.

My wife, Lelia Deluiz Wanick, and I have been 
together for more than 40 years. She is a 
designer. We do everything in our lives together. 
Everything. We work together. She is my partner in every sense.

Lelia said to me, Why don’t we return to Brazil, 
and plant the rain forest again? It was a brilliant idea.

So you became an Adam and Eve?

We did! And if we can, so many others can do the same.

We are restoring our forests. We raised money 
from foundations, from the government, and we 
have planted two million trees to date, with 170 
different species of trees. We turned our land 
into a nature preserve, and created an 
educational center for the environment, Instituto Terra.

And this is what made me begin this “Genesis” project.

I wanted to photograph the beauty of things born again.

Did you have a goal in mind?

I wanted to show people what we are losing. Our 
very existence on this planet is in danger.

I wanted to sample many different parts of the 
world; I went to every different region. I 
convinced several foundations to participate. I 
knew it was going to be a long-term commitment. It would take me eight years.

The journey ended up leading me to surprising places.

And was this journey healing for you?

You cannot imagine how this project restored my soul.

When I look back and think what we have done in 
Brazil, in the last eight years: my wife and I, 
alone, are producing a forest. We are 
sequestrating so much carbon with the trees we 
are planting. If we can do this, just two people, 
imagine what we all can do together. Imagine what 
governments can do if they decide it is important.

We can restore the biodiversity we are losing. 
Now, in Brazil, we are working on a project to 
restore the headwaters of the Rio Doce.

I believe that all together we are coming to 
another ideal for our planet. We are waking up.

A big hope began to grow inside me. And I think 
hope is also growing in the world.

You are living your own Genesis of sorts!

Yes. I am living in Genesis. All of us, we are 
part of a movement now. We do many things to our 
planet because we have no information about the 
problems we cause. We have to make people aware 
of the damage. Then they will change.

I believe we are living in a bright moment.

How will people be able to see your new work?

There will be a new book. And we have four major 
museum shows, in London, Toronto, Rome and Rio de 
Janeiro. But nothing in the United States. I 
cannot believe the bureaucracy of the museums 
there. I have had big museum shows, that’s not 
the problem. They told us they were interested, but for shows in 2017, 2018!

Does your book point a way forward for humankind?

I have no agenda to go back to the way of living 
that I show. I don’t like the word “primitive.” 
What I show is old. We are used to a kind of 
comfort now, and we are not going to lose that.

But we must become conscious. We must begin to heal our world.

With this project, I fell in love with my planet. 
This work is not about landscapes. It is about love.

Sebastião Salgado is a documentary photographer 
and the author of nine books, including the 
forthcoming  “Genesis.” A Unicef good-will 
ambassador, he is an honorary member of the 
Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dominique Browning 
is the senior director of MomsCleanAirForce.org. She blogs at SlowLoveLife.com.

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