Episode 1

Distopia Amazônica em Quatro Instantes

(Amazonian Dystopia in Four Moments)

For the episode that inaugurates the first season of podcasts, Silvio Luiz Cordeiro and Dirk Michael Hennrich interviewed photographer and photojournalist Lalo de Almeida (awarded in 2021 by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and in 2022 by World Press Photo), author of the images that will be exhibited at the artistic-cultural event TransAmazónias: Zonas Imaginárias (TransAmazonias: Imaginary Zones) of the first encounter of the Antropocenica series in Lisbon, in October 2022, for example these four photographs, shown during the interview, around which the conversation thus revolved.

From top left, clockwise, the four images commented on in this sequence by Lalo de Almeida, during his account recorded at Teatro Oficina: gold miners work in gold mining at one of the largest gold extraction zones in the northern region of Mato Grosso state; warriors of the Xikrin ethnic group return to Aldeia Rapko after an expedition to expel invaders from the Trincheira Bacajá Indigenous Land, in Pará; resident of the Arapixi Extractive Reserve, in Boca do Acre, Amazonas state, cuts vegetation for the passage of a canoe to the Brazil nut collection area in the interior of the forest; women and girls of the Pirahã ethnic group observe drivers passing along the Transamazon Highway, hoping to receive some food donation. Images: Lalo de Almeida.

The interview location was specially considered, in the symbolic sense of the series' own name: Antropocenica. Thus, we produced the recording inside Teatro Oficina, in its street-river-vein-terreiro-stage open to the city and the sky, of what has been considered one of the most important architectural theatre projects in the world, in the architecture of Lina Bo Bardi and Edson Elito, historic heritage of the city of São Paulo, plural place, of political and cultural resistance in the largest metropolis of South America, essential space in the history of Brazilian dramaturgy, above all through the activity of its principal director, José Celso Martinez Corrêa. To Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona, our gratitude for the support. Evoé!

Recording of the interview with Lalo de Almeida (checked shirt) at Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, Sunday 16 January 2022, end of a rainy afternoon in the city of São Paulo, with mediation by Silvio Luiz Cordeiro (white shirt) and Dirk Michael Hennrich (dark shirt). Images: D.M.H. / S.L.C.