Claudia Jaguaribe | São Paulo Inside\Out

The video installation São Paulo Inside\Out, created especially for the 9th International Photography festival, combines footage from two projects: “Above São Paulo” (“Sobre São Paulo”) and “Interviews” (“Entrevistas”). Both projects revolve around São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil and the most populous one in the Americas, as its population consists of 12 million residents within the city proper and 21 million in the greater metropolitan area. “Above São Paulo” was filmed from a bird’s-eye view on top of the city’s towers and while flying in a helicopter, causing the urban sprawl to drown out the area’s geography and topography until they lose all identifiable markers. “Interviews” provides a look at São Paulo through the homes of its varied residents, who each provide their intimate vision of the city. For two years, Jaguaribe visited the homes of 70 families from different social classes and sectors in the city, filmed and interviewed them. Large immigration waves from all around the world have made São Paulo one of the most diverse cities in the world, and through the eyes of its residents, Jaguaribe examines the city and constructs an architectural and human portrait of it. The video installation São Paulo Inside\Out offers a meeting point between interior spaces with personal stories, and the city’s public sphere, providing us with a wide, multidirectional look at this metropolis.
Claudia Jaguaribe was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1955 and has lived and worked in São Paulo since the 1990s. Using photography, video and the internet, she engages in an intense visual exploration of various aspects of contemporary society, focusing in particular on issues of urban life and the environment. By merging the subject and reality, she teases our perception of what we see and creates parallel narratives and multiple layers of understanding.

In collaboration with the Embassy of Brazil