Magnum Photos Blog

From the Archive 

The Moving Heart of BRAZIL 

June 17, 2014 
by Bruno Barbey 
The moving heart of BRAZIL
Nordeste is a remote, dried out, and disherited region of Brazil but also the moving heart of the country. Attracted by what they thought to be a better future, men and women, sometimes whole families, left their homes for an expected promised land.
They found themselves ending in the favelas of major cities as Rio and Belem or living as exploited farmers in the Amazonian forest. They tore themselves away from their rich cultural and historical roots which are a vibrant part of Brazilian identity. Their joys have become a souvenir. Their colourful carnivals and comforting religious practices, the patch worked ethnical entities and the multilingual richness of their home land are now haunting their nights and changing their passed dreams in a daily nightmare.
Bruno Barbey captured moments of this bleeding heart of Nordeste Brazilians. He worked close to them. His work is not over. His last commitment to their trust in his work is to show that if their heart is today bleeding it is very much still moving.