The seventh edition of 212 Photography Istanbul, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, will be hosting the “Genesis” exhibition by Sebastiao Salgado, a Brazilian photojournalist with a five-decade legacy of documenting the world, for the first time in Istanbul as part of the Culture Road Festivals.
Salgado, one of the most significant documentary photographers and activists of our time, is known for his impactful black-and-white images depicting harsh living and working conditions, poverty, hunger and migrations in the world’s underdeveloped countries. His “Genesis” project, consisting of 245 black-and-white photographs, will be displayed in Istanbul for three months.
This monumental project, worked on by Salgado between 2004 and 2011, is described by the artist as a “love letter to our planet.” It focuses on landscapes and animal species threatened by climate change, documenting unchanged landscapes and communities in the North and South, the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands despite the destructive impact of modern society. The exhibition takes the audience on a journey to explore different geographies and cultures, from the animal species of the Galapagos to the penguins of Antarctica and the South Atlantic, as well as the tribes in the Amazon.
Sebastiao Salgado holds a degree in Economics from Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (UFES), a master’s degree from the University of Sao Paulo and a doctorate from the University of Paris. He began his professional career as an economist at the International Coffee Organization and undertook his first trips to Africa for the World Bank. During these trips, he started taking photographs and continued his career in photography from 1973 onwards. He worked with photo agencies Sygma, Gamma based in Paris and Magnum Photos from 1979 to 1994.
Later, he founded his agency, Amazonas Images, with his wife, Lelia Wanick Salgado. In the late ’80s, he gained recognition for his documentary photographs of workers in underdeveloped countries, such as the images taken at the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil. In the field of environmentalism, he and his wife have been working on the restoration of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest since the 1990s. They transformed a 17,000-acre area into a nature reserve and dedicated their institute, Instituto Terra, to reforestation, conservation and environmental education.
With a career spanning over half a century, Salgado is one of the most respected living photographers, honored with numerous awards. Most recently, in 2024, he received the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award from the Sony World Photography Awards, a recognition previously given to photography pioneers like William Klein, William Eggleston, Elliott Erwitt and Rinko Kawauchi.
In June 2007, a major selection of his works was exhibited in Madrid as part of PHotoEspana. Since 2013, the “Genesis” project has been showcased at leading museums around the world, including the British Museum in London, the International Centre of Photography in New York, the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome, Fotografiska in Stockholm and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It has reached audiences globally, from South Korea to Brazil, and from Portugal to the Netherlands.
The documentary film “Salt of the Earth,” directed by Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders, focuses on Salgado’s work and life, won the “Un Certain Regard” award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2015 Oscars.
Since 2001, Salgado has served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He has published 19 books, including “Genesis,” “The Other Americas,” “Sahel,” “Workers,” and “Migrations,” published by Taschen in 2013.
