about Pierre Verger, a Parisian photographer who fell in love with Brazil and the orixás

29

today i will talk about a photographer who felt and fell in love with the orixás, especially a land.

Salvador - Bahía could not be understood without your work. Pierre Verger is the Parisian who managed to capture with his photographs the true African American spirit, capturing the essence of the Candomblé ritual (a fusion between the religious practices of black African slaves who came to America and the Catholicism of the colonists) from Africa to America. Always with tolerance and total honesty, we revisit Salvador da Bahía under the photographic gaze of this Parisian in Brazil.

The interest in Yoruba culture ended taking Pierre Verger on paths that few whites started to take. He documents all kinds of rituals (but his gaze travels practically all over the world). Let us say that his mission in this world was a messenger between two continents: Africa and America, condemned to understand each other.

He created everything, including medicinal plants for the rituals: he managed to document more than 2,000 recipes. In her work, Ovelha receives 447 recipes (leaves, shells, seeds, fruits, flowers, roots ...) used for skin problems, money, sexual impotence, nightmares, etc.
He received the name of Fatumbi (or 'the born again'). He began to attend the Ilê Axé Opó Afonjá terreiro, visiting him for the first time in 1948, shortly before traveling to Africa, where he obtained a scholarship to photograph the most significant religious rituals. The priestess Mae Senhora (1942-1967) offered to consecrate her head to Xangó and that was how a long friendship with the Candomblé people began.
His study and decolonizing vision guided him in life: "Salvador da Bahía is one of the few places where there is the possibility of living on the same level of friendship with people of different ethnic origins," he said, after more than fifty years. years documenting the world (in Spain in the 1930s, he was mistaken for a German spy and was arrested). But it was Salvador da Bahia where I always wanted to go back and stay there forever, and that's where you have to go and visit him.

that was the land I was born in! and I'm proud of it

on his travels he took wonderful photographs of important ceremonies and rituals, where he captured deities in the skin of his human children by his gaze.

Pierre Verger, in the book Dieux d'Afrique, recorded: "Iemanjá is the orixá of the fresh and salty waters of the Egbá, a Yoruba nation that was once established in the region between Ifé and Ibadan

"Candomblé - Cosme Salvador Brasil". Photograph taken between 1946 and 1953

I was never able to look at Verger's images just as photographs of Candomblé, I always saw the babalaô, I saw Fatumbi (the one who is reborn by Ifá) sharing secrets and myths. but the secret of the sacred remains with its owner.

here in Brazil the 'African Legends of the Orixás', a book by Pierre Verger and Carybé, was relaunched and won an application.

(PS: Salvador is in Bahia, northeast of Brazil, where I was born)

whoever wants to feel a little, I recommend listening to a music !!

@missy @rambo @jacqueline

VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
ilana:
@jtelson ♡
aaldrine:
And again a truely interesting blog from you @ilana you remind me some of my history of arts' classes! And I enjoy that 🤓 and this photos are beautiful..I hope I'll see an exhibition of this work one day o-o

More Blogs