Sebastião Salgado is one the most respected photojournalists working today, his reputation forged by decades of dedication and powerful black-and-white images of distressed people taken in places where most wouldn’t dare to go. Although he has photographed around the globe, his work most heavily concentrates on Africa, where he has shot more than 40 reportage works over a period of 30 years. From the Dinka tribes in Sudan and the Himba in Namibia to gorillas and volcanoes in the lakes region to displaced peoples throughout the continent, Salgado shows us all facets of African life today. He knows exactly how to grab the essence of a moment and his images artfully teach us the disastrous effects of war, poverty, disease, and hostile climatic conditions. This stunning book brings together Salgado’s photos in three parts: the first concentrates on the southern part of the continent (Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia), the second on the Great Lakes region (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya), and the third on the Sub-Saharan region (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Mauritania, Senegal, Ethiopia). Texts are provided by renowned Mozambique novelist Mia Couto, who describes how today’s Africa reflects the effects of colonization as well as the consequences of economic, social, and environmental crises.

The photographer:

Sebastião Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in Paris in 1973 and subsequently worked with the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum Photos. In 1994 he and his wife Lélia created Amazonas images, which exclusively handles his work. Salgado’s photographic projects have been featured in many exhibitions as well as books, including Other Americas (1986), Sahel, L'Homme en détresse (1986), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations (2000), The Children (2000) and Africa (2007).

The editor:

Lélia Wanick Salgado studied architecture and urban planning in Paris. Her interest in photography started in 1970. In the 1980s she moved on to conceiving and designing photography books and organizing exhibitions, numerous of them on Sebastião Salgado. Since 1994 Lélia Wanick Salgado has been the director of Amazonas images.

The contributing author:

Translated in more than 20 languages, Mia Couto is Mozambique’s most celebrated author. His first novel, Sleepwalking Land, was chosen by an international jury as one of twelve best African books published in the 20th century. He lives in Maputo, Mozambique and works as an ecologist.

65 kiloluk fotoğraf kitabı

Pek çok yayınevi dijital yayıncılıkla ilgilenirken, e-kitaplar basılı kitapları öldürecek mi tartışmaları sürerken, Alman yayınevi Taschen, yayımladığı dev boyutlardaki kitap serileriyle okurları şaşırtmaya devam ediyor.

Milliyet Gazetesi’nin haberine göre Taschen Yayınevi, Brezilyalı fotoğrafçı ve Unicef iyi niyet elçisi Sebastiao Salgado’nun son sekiz yılda dünyanın ücra köşelerine yaptığı gezilerde çektiği siyah beyaz fotoğraflardan oluşan kitabı “Genesis”i dev boyutlarda yayımladı. Özel sürümüyle yaklaşık 65 kilogram ağırlığında olan kitabın fiyatı 9 bin dolar. Japon mimar Tadao Ando’nun özel olarak tasarladığı, bir metreden uzun rahlesi de fiyata dâhil. Kitaplar haziran ayının ortasından başlayarak dünyada 11 farklı kitabevinde satılırken, fiyatlar da her sürüm için biner dolar artacak.

The Rebel Clown Army Manifesto

We are insurgent because we have risen up from nowhere and are everywhere. Because ideas can be ignored but not suppressed and an insurrection of the imagination is irresistible. Because whenever we fall over we rise up again and again and again, knowing that nothing is lost for history, that nothing is final. Because history doesn’t move in straight lines but surges like water, sometimes swirling, sometimes dripping, flowing, flooding–always unknowable, unexpected, uncertain. Because the key to insurgency is brilliant improvisation, not perfect blueprints.

We are rebels because we love life and happiness more than ‘revolution.’ Because no revolution is ever complete and rebellions continues forever. Because we will dismantle the ghost-machine of abstraction with means that are indistinguishable from ends. Because we don’t want to change ‘the’ world, but ‘our’ world. Because we will always desert and disobey those who abuse and accumulate power. Because rebels transform everything–the way they live, create, love, eat, laugh, play, learn, trade, listen, think and most of all the way they rebel.

We are an army because we live on a planet in permanent war–a war of money against life, of profit against dignity, of progress against the future. Because a war that gorges itself on death and blood and shits money and toxins, deserves an obscene body of deviant soldiers. Because only an army can declare absurd war on absurd war. Because combat requires solidarity, discipline and commitment. Because alone clowns are pathetic figures, but in groups and gaggles, brigades and battalions, they are extremely dangerous. We are an army because we are angry and where bombs fail we might succeed with mocking laughter. And laughter needs an echo.

We are approximate and ambivalent, in the most powerful of all places, the place in-between order and chaos.