Sebastião Salgado: Amazônia

Sebastiáo Salgado traveled the Brazilian Amazon and photographed the unparalleled beauty of this extraordinary region for six years: the forest, the rivers, the mountains, the people who live there―an irreplaceable treasure of humanity.

In the book’s foreword Salgado writes: „For me, it is the last frontier, a mysterious universe of its own, where the immense power of nature can be felt as nowhere else on earth. Here is a forest stretching to infinity that contains one-tenth of all living plant and animal species, the world’s largest single natural laboratory.“

Salgado visited a dozen indigenous tribes that exist in small communities scattered across the largest tropical rainforest in the world. He documented the daily life of the Yanomami, the Ashŕninka, the Yawanawŕ, the Suruwahŕ, the Zo’é, the Kuikuro, the Waurŕ, the Kamayurŕ, the Korubo, the Marubo, the Awŕ, and the Macuxi―their warm family bonds, their hunting and fishing, the manner in which they prepare and share meals, their marvelous talent for painting their faces and bodies, the significance of their shamans, and their dances and rituals.

Sebastiáo Salgado has dedicated this book to the indigenous peoples of Brazil’s Amazon region: „My wish, with all my heart, with all my energy, with all the passion I possess, is that in 50 years’ time this book will not resemble a record of a lost world. Amazônia must live on.“

INSTITUTO TERRA

Founded in 1998 at Aimorés in the state of Minas Gerais, Instituto Terra is the culmination of Lélia Wanick Salgado and Sebastiáo Salgado’s lifelong activism and work as cultural documentarians. Through a scientific program of planting and raising saplings, the organization has performed a miraculous reforestation of the once infertile region and furthered the Salgados’ mission of reversing the damage done to our planet. TASCHEN is proud to reach carbon zero status through our continued partnership.

Also available in a Collector’s Edition and four Art Editions, each with a signed silver gelatin print, all with a book stand designed by Renzo Piano.

Editorial Reviews

Review
„This book is dedicated to the indigenous peoples of Brazil’s Amazon region. It is a celebration of the survival of their cultures, customs, and languages. It is also a tribute to their role as the guardians of the beauty, natural resources, and biodiversity of the planet’s largest rainforest in the face of unrelenting assault by the outside world. We are eternally grateful to them for allowing us to share their lives.“ ― Sebastiáo Salgado and Lélia Wanick Salgado

„An exceptional book on the beauty of this almost lost paradise, threatened by a galloping deforestation.“ ― Le Soir

„Capture[s] the sheer scale of the still-unspoiled heart of this wilderness.“ ― The Guardian

„This book is a powerfully persuasive voice in an increasingly urgent campaign.“ ― The Times

„[Sebastiáo Salgado] spent six years capturing the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous inhabitants, making a case for their ecological and cultural importance.“ ― The New York Times

„Amazônia, a stunning succession of black and white panoramas. Looking through his images, I feel the same awe I would feel in front of sublime paintings: serpentine rivers flow through seemingly limitless forests, sheer-sided rock escarpments vanish into skies, and apocalyptic clouds loom over wispy treetops.“ ― The Guardian

About the Author
Sebastiáo Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in Paris in 1973 and subsequently worked with the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum Photos. In 1994, he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado created Amazonas Images, which is today their studio, and exclusively handles his work. Salgado’s photographic projects have been featured in many exhibitions as well as books, including Sahel. L’Homme en détresse (1986), Other Americas (1986), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations (2000), The Children (2000), Africa (2007), Genesis (2013), The Scent of a Dream (2015), Kuwait. A Desert on Fire (2016), and Gold (2019).

Lélia Wanick Salgado studied architecture and urban planning in Paris. Her interest in photography started in 1970. In the 1980s, she began to conceive and design the majority of Sebastiáo Salgado’s photography books and all of the exhibitions of his work. Since 1994, Lélia Wanick Salgado has been the director of Amazonas Images (until 2017) and their Paris studio.