Thursday, September 19, 2013

Sebastiao Salgado Migrations: Humanity in Transition

Illegal immigrants are all over, but we don’t even know it. Sebastaio Salgado is his book Migrations brings awareness to this in the form of photographs. All the photographs are in black and white and they depict various stories, various stages of an immigrant’s journey.

One such photo has as a subject a young man. He is sitting in a car in a scrapyard. The car he has made into his home. The scrapyard is his home. (Salgado 46/47) The description of this picture explains that immigrants travel long and hard. They walk more than I could ever imagine walking in less than desirable circumstances. This particular picture is in Spain. Once they have entered Spain, illegally, they go to a settlement to await permission to go to the Spanish mainland. The settlements are abandoned warehouses and scrapyards. (Salgado Pamphlet)

Can you imagine? Living in an abandoned car in the middle of a scrapyard after journeying so long? I know I can’t. Salgado, in an interview for the opening of a gallery said, “When I was on the road photographing people, they all had this in common: the hope of survival, the instinct of survival.” (Doreen B. Townsend Center Occasional Papers) It is so amazing how much some people need to endure in order to survive. This book and this picture in particular really make me think about how much I have and how little others have. How much others go through just to have what I would consider almost nothing. These immigrants just want to survive, many of them just want to work and be able to help their families. It truly is a whole other world then the one so many of us know, a world that isn’t well known and one that we should all become aware of.


Works cited
Salgado, Sebastião. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. New York: Aperture, 2000. Print.
Salgado, Sebastião. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. (Pamphlet) New York: Aperture, 2000. Print

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2 comments:

  1. I love all of the descriptions you bring about the undesirable conditions and you really illuminate the hardships that these people go through. I would love to hear you talk about how you felt and reacted to this picture, on a much deeper level. You grabbed my attention with the descriptions and facts but the emotional side would grab me even more. Especially if you had personal connections or something of that sort. Good Job!

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  2. I completely agree with what you are saying. Looking through Salgado's book really puts things into perspective. I never realized how truly blessed my life is until I saw images of people who only had the clothes on their backs and the courage to keep going until they found peace. This picture shows just how desperate people are to find a better life in a new country where they can have more freedoms and options. The man in this picture was willing to consider a car in a junk yard home until he received permission to enter Spain. I do not know if I would be able to do that. I do not think that anyone can truly understand what that feels like until they are put in that position. This picture does a great job of trying to portray the difficulties though.

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