Weaves & Mazes

On a blue morning, a man holds a fishing net in his hands and looks with sharp eyes at the sea.

I, examining the horizon without being able to perceive anything extraordinary, ask him what he is observing. Without removing the fixity of his gaze, he tells me:

- I'm looking for the shoal.

The incontestable certainty calms his wait.

Suddenly, his eyes widen and he yells "There! There they are!" rushing to launch. I look and look and see nothing.

I intuit that the expert eye actually sees what is only revealed to those who have sensitivity, patience, and faith.

Weaves & Mazes is a visual essay that celebrates the local culture of Canoa Quebrada, a coastal city in Ceará, Brazil. A tiny town that has been undergoing symbolic, physical, and social transformations as a consequence of its modernization. While History seems to pursue idealized self-destructive progress through discourses that claim to be unique and linear, it is possible to find traces of communities whose survival is closely linked to the non-hierarchizing between different sources of knowledge and to the perpetuation of their own myths and legends.

The work, born from an increasingly affectioned relationship of admiration and enchantment, aims to create unusual, dreamlike images inspired by local stories and their characters. Beyond its experimental side that seeks to motivate us to connect with our imagination, there is also the political aspect of disputing space for formative narratives.

Through the search for moments of veiled magic that underlie the rites that compose the daily fabric, the project sees in photography the ability to emphasize sensitivities that escape the ordinary gaze, allowing us to be guided by the subjective time of contemplation, in a continuous process of diving into awareness and reverie.

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