Decoloniality in the photographic work of Walter Firmo

Abstract

This text aims to recognize Walter Firmo's photographic production in relation to decolonial thinking, observing signs of a decolonization of the camera, as proposed by Mark Searly. According to the author, decoloniality in photography encompasses values of visibility and public recognition of groups and subjects who, in modern and colonial logic, are treated and represented under signs of violence and dehumanization. Having worked for national and international media outlets, Firmo has made a mark in photojournalism by portraying the pluralism of Brazilian culture and subjects from the black community (anonymous and personalities) in a haughty way. Consecrated in the field of photographic portraiture, he developed methods of capturing reality that are not limited to recording, but give plasticity and organicity to realities and people that are generally silenced. The close relationships that are established between the images produced by the photographer and decolonial values are based on the assumptions of decolonial epistemology and in dialog with communication, taken up through bibliographical research, and on the method of equality proposed by Rancière. Distancing itself from stereotyped and crystallized views and values as forms of domination, Firmo's photographic production is decolonial in that it values subjects and blackness in processes that reinvent representations.