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Espinha (spine in Portuguese) is a set of bones and cartilage supporting the body. But this term can also be used in relation to a structure or a construction support.

Espinha is an invitation to visit the universe created by Shinji Nagabe, a Brazilian photographer who grew up in a traditional Japanese family (Japanese immigration is high in Brazil, especially in São Paulo). Shinji Nagabe’s work has always been guided by his dual culture. His images, surprising and mysterious, are a combination of formal and static poses evoking the Japanese pictorial universe with colors in tropical tones and accessories which are typical for the Brazilian syncretist cult.

A journalist by training, although he no longer practices this profession, Shinji Nagabe has kept the taste for a certain documentary investigation and creates an intriguing symbiosis between reality and fantasy. The symbols of African candomblé and Brazilian carnival are interweaving with subtlety between each other while retaining a formalism characteristic for Japanese art.

This book is composed of five series produced in five Brazilian states: Bahia, São Paulo, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Sergipe, between 2015 and 2018. The photographer immerses himself in the villages for a long time and creates his images in close collaboration with children, drawing inspiration for his stagings from the history of these territories, their social and economic realities, rituals and fantastic fables.

Shinji Nagabe’s work was exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles from July 1 to September 22, 2019 (Discovery Prize, presented by the Galeria Da Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).