Leonardo Carrato: We don’t want to become a Statistic
© Leonardo Carrato
We don’t want to become a Statistic
Curator: Lara Ciarabellini
Located not far away from the famous Maracana stadium of Rio de Janeiro, IBGE building is one of the many abandoned buildings in Brazil. Here, 400 homeless families live in precarious conditions at the fringes of society. A situation which could be representative of other hundreds in Brazil and in the world. Leonardo discovered IBGE when covering the housing removal before the World Cup in 2014, and chose this place to tell a deeper story, and to stand up for people who usually are forgotten by institutions and citizens.
Beyond of the irrefutable beauty of his series, what emerge from Leonardo's pictures is the sense of respect and dignity. He fulfils perfectly resident's wish “We don't want to be a statistic”, used as project's title: the emphasis is more on human being, which should matter above all, than on the location.
In fact, Leonardo's series gives the perception of representing the extreme poverty of the IBGE as background, to support the narrative of the story. Whereas the poor conditions are evident, they are not prevailing, and not overwhelming. The surroundings work as an active theatre: the characters almost tease the surroundings, to engender consolation, protection or diversion between them.
Yet what made the pictures remarkable, is the choice of showing daily life situation. There is not violence. Despair, anguish and anger are recognizable, but all we can perceive is the slow pace of the routine life in a place where the routine should not be a normal practice. Also the use of contrasts and backlit never dramatize the situations; on the contrary, they enforce the sense of active theatre of life.
But this is not a theatre: this is the reality in Rio de Janeiro, as the man says in the video. In a perfect documentarist style as well as the pictures' series are, the video and its mute parts in between the stories told by residents, share with the audience place's tension, and give the time needed to reflect on the meaning of being human.
© Lara Ciarabellini 2016