OURO PRETO


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Brazil, a dream country! Sixteen times the surface of France. My journey in November, 2015 incites me to explore the region of Minas Gerais. This region is considered for its ground “rich” in ores of all kinds of precious stones, of some iron, of some bauxite, of some manganese, cobalt, mercury, uranium… and of the ouro! Some GOLD.
There, if we had to find ONE of these rare ores, we move mountains. Then, we dig in bowels of the Earth to extract this wealth from it.
This is how we can discover a region, which is in some places, totally ravaged by the hand of the Man!
It is in that place that I felt and got acquainted with “The Man, his history, its work, its faith and the Gold “.
The city of Ouro Preto was established on July 8th, 1711 following the discovery by bandeirantes (golden pioneers) in the rivers of Minas Gerais, towards the end of the XVII th century. A crowd of gold diggers, soon joined by storekeepers, comes to settle down there to make a fortune.
In its peak, this city used more than 100 000 slaves with the aim of tearing away the gold in mines… Ouro Preto quickly becomes a city not only prosperous but also very important. By 1750, she counts more inhabitants than Rio de Janeiro or New York.
The wealth of the city allows it to build a multitude of baroque churches.
With the end of the exploitation of gold in the State of Minas Gerais, the city is abandoned little by little and has changed so few since this time.
A century later, a plundered ground, the investors went to run other more profitable parts of the country…
My photographic work presents this region, its painful story and this optimistic present forward-looking.

Captions:

01- Church of Sao Pedro Mariana
02- Sunday walk
03- The city comes alive
04- Ouro Preto
05- Church Nossa Senhora das Merces and Perdoes
06- Trace…
07- We’ll all go to heaven!
08- Passage of a day
09- The winch of the Life…
10- Mina of Passagem III
11- Mina of Passagem I
12- Sainte Barbe, Protect our miners!
13- The Ouro of Minas Gerais
14- Church nossa Senhora da gloria
15- The walk is high
16- Mirage in Ouro Preto
17- Dog time
18- Night discussion
19- Reflection
20- Teenage games

Photographs by FLACH Jean-Jacques
2015