Sebastião Salgado
Brazil • 1944 - 2025
Hunter of Light 

Until the final day of his life, cut short at the age of 81, Sebastião Salgado lived both for and through images. He was not only one of the central figures in photography, he was also a long-standing friend to this Festival and would regularly present his monumental projects here at La Gacilly. It feels only natural that we should pay tribute to him this year.

“Salgado is a hunter of light in a world of darkness,” said Brazilian President Lula da Silva, finding the perfect words to summarise fifty years of his career as a tireless chronicler to our rapidly changing world.

For Salgado, who trained as an economist, photography was anything but an expected path. On fleeing his native Brazil to escape the military dictatorship, he and his wife, his unwavering supporter Lélia, in 1969, they sought refuge in France. Together, they found a way to serve the most vulnerable peoples. With his camera as his weapon of choice, Salgado focused on social issues from the outset, demonstrating an innate understanding of the power of photography to transform how we see the world.

Salgado’s projects gradually shaped themselves in a unique style that was clearly his own: powerful, high-contrast black-and-white images that combined documentary accuracy with a strong visual impact. Over the years, as he travelled and his reputation grew, he built up a body of work that documented the major human and environmental crises of his time.

From 1977 to 1984, Salgado travelled across Latin America, documenting its landscapes and people. He subsequently turned his lens to document the final years of the industrial world in Workers, a project spanning 26 countries. Here, Salgado revealed the lives of manual labourers, gold miners in the surreal Serra Pelada, and steelworkers in Soviet-era factories.

Salgado’s later work explored the vast migratory movements that have reshaped our planet. In Exodus, he focused primarily on Africa, meticulously examining the forces that drive entire populations to leave rural areas for cities, or abandon their homelands in search of utopian dreams.

Despite the seriousness of his subjects, Salgado sought light in humanity’s darkest moments. In Genesis, he paid tribute to untouched territories and wildlife and celebrated the resilience of the natural world in the face of human destruction.

His final project brought him back to his roots in the Amazon and celebrated the Indigenous peoples as the last guardians of our planet’s natural resources. Viewing this exhibition will take you back in time, encourage you to reflect on the fragility of our planet, and question how we can act to preserve its beauty for future generations. 

Salgado’s photography is a testament to his unwavering dedication to showing how humanity and beauty persist in the face of adversity. His exhibition was put together by Lélia Wanick Salgado and Studio Sebastião Salgado. 

Garage.