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Ricardo Teles
www.ricardoteles.com.br
At the beginning of the 1940s, practically all 43 million of Brazil’s inhabitants were concentrated
on the coast and looked on the interior of their own country as something exotic. The region was no more than a vast, unexplored shaded area in Brazilian geography. The Roncador-Xingu expedition was planned to explore and discover the heart of this legendary, mysterious Brazil.
The fundamental instrument that allowed for such phenomenal territorial occupation was the building of a network of highways that would connect the country. All along the highways trees fell, new and often destructive urban centers were born, attracting people with dreams of a better life.
These highways are the main connecting links between communities and serve as supply arteries and production transportation channels. They synthesize the duel between the new agricultural and environmental frontiers, as well as the rich social universe that lives and depends on them for its survival.
Transbrasilianas is an immersion into the depths of Brazil. It shows, through Brazilian highways and the people who live around them, a picture, in some ways disconcerting, of a reality often forgotten by the greater public. It speaks, in the end, of the complexity of the life of this important section of Brazilian society, their challenges, paradigms and the uncertain paths that point to the future. |
