C. A. S. A.

A photo essay by Ricardo Junqueira

Since 1996, when he moved from São Paulo to Natal, he had the opportunity to travel around the Rio Grande do Norte, working or just for fun, and he was always enchanted by the diversity and richness of the buildings, the people’s houses, which sometimes, despite little formal education or even with enormous difficulty to survive, they find ways to, with the greatest dignity, build their house, on their little piece of ground, and, in addition, they are able to decorate them with some flower bed or some adornment, even in those adobe or wattle-and-daub constructions, often where the skeleton of the house is exposed, causing something like discomfort, an air of pity, or giving the impression that it is a less dignified or lesser home, safe for those who inhabit it.

In some places, the climatic conditions, and the repeated droughts end up forcing people to abandon their lands, and their houses and it is also very common to find some ruins, in other places, places that once belonged to wealthy families, remnants of a system of captaincies hereditary, many who over time ended up losing their possessions and also abandoned their homes.

This work was captured in photos over the four years he traveled and collected material.

Part of this architectural heritage, so rich and sometimes so forgotten, was transformed into an exhibition where I am inspired by the images of houses or a set of them, some abandoned, others in full use, which I later portray through a technique that is used of alternative means of revealing black and white copies, I transform it into a unique work, where the characteristics of the record are maintained and some visual elements are added that transform the images into something more than a simple record, where I can express myself through aesthetic elements embedded in images.