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Nature photography is as full of traps as nature itself.

The landscape itself brings beauty in such an order that the photographer can hardly escape common images. Nature always surpasses him.

Entering this landscape and becoming part of it is the solution to understand it better and be able to portray it as something new.

Zé Paiva then emerges from the middle of the forests, rivers, rocks, and there you have it: the photographer has become a plant, or a rock, or a river; a small insect, a microscopic flower.

Being part of it: that is the secret to survive and stay by its side.

Rosely Nakagawa

There are countless ways to express concern for the planet's nature and our future. Photographer Zé Paiva transformed his concern into a documentary project that combines art and science.

A native of Rio Grande do Sul who lives in Santa Catarina, Paiva traveled to all of the fully protected conservation units in Rio Grande do Sul, collecting material for the book Natureza Gaúcha Expedition.

In the book's preface, Rualdo Menegat, a Phd. in Landscape Ecology, summarizes: “Zé Paiva's incursion is an intriguing search for hidden nature, the kind that is still somehow preserved in parks and preservation areas. It is a subtle way of announcing how little remains and how much we have lost or can still lose. As the result of the work of a traveler who follows the footsteps of naturalist cognition, it has perspective and position: to show in each snapshot how beautiful and diverse nature is in its own naturalness, that is, beyond the usual clichés that may imprison the multiple landscapes of our state.”

Zé Paiva records the diversity of fauna and flora, both terrestrial and aquatic, in a profusion of plains, mountains, rivers, beaches, birds, mammals and many other animals. The photographer explains that the Nature Expedition project seeks to redesign the ecology of Brazilian states and draw society's attention to ecological issues before it is too late. “My inspiration is the wisdom of naturalist masters such as Fritz Müller, Carl Friedrich von Martius and Priest Balduíno Rambo, who viewed the scientific event combined with understanding, sensitivity and artistic quality. The search for this perspective translates into a new possibility of raising awareness in contemporary society about environmental issues.

In addition to 23 conservation units managed by Sema – RS, the project covered protected areas under the responsibility of the Federal Government.

The trips were divided into three expeditions: the first passed through the coastal plain, traveling along the coast from Torres to Chuí and returning along the western shore of Lagoa Mirim and Laguna dos Patos, exploring several conservation units such as Lagoa do Peixe National Park and Taim Ecological Station, among others. The second expedition documented the Rio Grande do Sul highlands, covering the Serra Geral State Biological Reserve, Aratinga State Ecological Station, Tainhas State Park, Serra Geral National Park, Aparados da Serra National Park, São José dos Ausentes and Ibitiriá State Park. The third expedition was through the pampas of Rio Grande do Sul. It began in the Southeast Mountain Range, in Caçapava do Sul, followed the Peripheral Depression until reaching the southern fields, went up the Uruguai River and ended in Missões area.

Rejane Martins

Until the 19th century, the image of the landscape was a kind of synthesis of the relationships between a set of biophysical determinants and the action of organized man in societies bearing a historicity, a culture, and technological evolution.

Almost always framed by a rural and traditional society, landscape painting gave us back the security of a stable, coherent, recognizable knowledge in lasting balance.

With photography, the recording of the landscape was transformed into recognition of the marks of time, of the relevant constructions of history, of the survey of material resources.

In recent years, we have witnessed profound and radical transformations: violent urbanization, devastated territories, regions at risk, transformed landscapes.

The role of the photographer has also changed radically. From surveying wealth, he has begun to denounce the deconstruction of the landscape as a threat to civilization and culture.

Zé Paiva, a hunter of images, transforms the landscape into images of great power and beauty. He shows the landscape as an object of contemplation without failing to show human action and the need for balance.

The Tocantins Nature Expedition shows the challenge of this delicate coexistence between actions and contradictions, between strength and delicacy, in a constant struggle between man and himself in a stunning landscape that is constantly changing.

Rosely Nakagawa

I walked 220 kilometers along trails with heavy backpacks, 60 kilometers paddling a canadian canoe and over 1,800 kilometers by car, to experience every corner of the island. I went through forests, crossed dunes, sandbanks and lagoons, crossed mangroves and cliffs. To get a bird's eye view, I took 43 aerial trails using a drone, covering a total of 121 kilometers. The view of the island from above is impressive. A mix of adrenaline and wonder. Seeing the landscape from an unusual angle gives us an idea of ​​the grandeur of nature and at the same time the impact we have caused. 11,750 photographs were taken during 7 months of fieldwork.

Zé Paiva

Until the Renaissance, many scientists were also artists and vice versa. A well-known example was Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519), a mix of scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, poet and musician. Especially after the Industrial Revolution, society began to increasingly specialize and thus science and art became increasingly dissociated.

In this exhibition, we seek to combine the art of photography with scientific knowledge about the animals portrayed. To this end, we sought inspiration from the German naturalist Fritz Müller, who in addition to being a scientist was a poet, philosopher, teacher, doctor, farmer and excellent artist.

In Brazil, we know more about African animals than about those native to our country. This exhibition seeks to fill this gap by displaying animals from the southern region: some rare, others more common, some threatened with extinction, others not, some better known, others less so, but all capable of captivating our sympathy.

All animals are part of an immense web called nature, which is not something dissociated from our world, whether we live in urban areas or not. On the contrary, all the balance of life on Earth depends on nature, because everything on the planet is interconnected. We call this ecology, from the Latin oikos – home and logos – study, , a science that studies the interactions between organisms and their environment.

Every animal, from the enormous whale to the tiny ant, has its role in this web of life. Our survival on the planet depends on this balance, because for life to be possible we need water, air, and food. We also have a place in this web of life, in all of our daily actions. It is urgent that we become aware of our role in this scenario and not see nature as something distant and beautiful to be only appreciated.

Zé Paiva

It was the exercise of self-portrait that made this Enlightened by Zé Paiva emerge. From posing for himself, he gets up from a chair – which belonged to his great-grandmother – to photograph these people who, like him, are characters from the Island of Santa Catarina. After all, this gaucho has been in Santa Catarina for thirty years and already shares local knowledge.

Zé Paiva composes with trails of light. They are the ones who illuminate the stories of these men and women marked by their professions. Ecstatic for the necessary time, they allow themselves to be portrayed. In other words, they are all immersed and complicit in the temporality of the flashlight photography.

The character and photographer take turns in the brushstrokes that make up a delicate painting, a mixture of technique and expressiveness. And, between poses and scenes, they highlight the nature of the people and their things.

They propose a fair game between objectivity and subjectivity, on the border between document and fiction. They are indigenous heritages learned by Azorean immigrants, such as the technology of cassava flour and the making of the single-wood canoe, carved from garapuvu wood, the tree that is the symbol of Florianópolis – a true piece of “caiçara" engineering. 

Zé Paiva, who exchanged engineering for photography, excavates the imaginations of musicians, cooks, artisans, fishermen, and healers and synthesizes them into a single image; he reveals a landscape for their eyes and offers it to ours.

He explores the landscape-pose of his subjects, as simple as the slippers they wear, as dignified as the firmness of their working feet, as powerful as the hands that built stories and identities.

This photograph by Zé Paiva is not just for mere contemplation. It brings a heritage to preserve. Participating in this harvest, which, moreover, earned him the XII Funarte Marc Ferrez Photography Award 2012, is a pleasure for which I thank this luminous photographer.

Denise Camargo, curator

2013 autumn

“The eye gathers what the hand cannot,” wrote poet Ronald Augusto. Photographer Zé Paiva harvests nature to preserve what the hand perhaps could not. These images of nature, even though they are not nature, but a representation of it, are the result of a harvest.

The haikus – the smallest expression that condenses the maximum of what the eye gathers – are not here to serve as captions, nor even as illustrations, but rather to remind us of the photographer’s relationship with the contemplation of nature and with his formation as a reader – reading is also contemplation.

Every detail of these representations of landscapes is the maximum expression of silence. The movement of prolonged exposures produces sounds, because we see the movement, and this refers to its archetypal noise.

Absolute silence is unbearable. That is why there is sound in the silence of the images. So, contemplate these images, reading and listening to all the soundsilence contained in them.

Fábio Brüggemann