Porto Velho, Brazil, 1983.
Lives and works in Porto Velho, Brazil.
Do we really know who we are? How many times do we look in the mirror and identify our ancestral features there? Some people create an image that does not represent them, but that is accepted by society or sometimes they simply prefer to break the mirror and not face themselves. This mirror was often broken by photographer Marcela Bonfim, 38 years old from the city of Jaú, São Paulo state, today recognized as a black woman and resident in the city of Porto Velho, Rondônia, for 11 years.
Do we really know who we are? How many times do we look in the mirror and identify our ancestral features there? Some people create an image that does not represent them, but that is accepted by society or sometimes they simply prefer to break the mirror and not face themselves. This mirror was often broken by photographer Marcela Bonfim, 38 years old from the city of Jaú, São Paulo state, today recognized as a black woman and resident in the city of Porto Velho, Rondônia, for 11 years.
Graduated in economics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, the activist for the cause of black people and traditional peoples were another Marcela until she was 25 years old. She considered herself a whitened black, believed in the discourse of meritocracy. She heard from her parents that if she studied, she would be able to have a good job and be happy. Also based on this discourse, she criticized affirmative action policies, such as racial quotas, and said that they were more a demonstration of prejudice and racism, a word that she did not see in her reality.
Marcela wore some disguises over her skin to be accepted. In the high school group, she was given the title of funniest, she was the clown in the classroom, the most laughing, and by this way, the economist lived her life. She believed in a possible world, with open doors and free movement, without any obstacle. But she was wrong and it was during the search for her first job that her world fell apart and the disguises didn’t work anymore, her skin color was now coming through.
Once in Rondônia, in order to face her blackness, Marcela bought a camera in 2012 and began photographing black people, men, women, children, young and old, in the Amazon Quilombola communities (traditional communities of black resistance), in rituals of Candomblé “terreiros” (meeting yard), religious festivities, penitentiaries. The records also sought to portray black people in their employment, mostly in domestic activities.
The lenses also captured the resistance to the preservation of culture and customs and the beauty of black aesthetics. The photograph was a rescue of Marcela’s own identity as a black woman and it was in the Amazon that she “faced” the color of her skin.
