Garimpeiros da Luz
Chiapada Diamantina, Brazil 2010
I’m the happiest man in this world in having created this new workshop in the extraordinary Chapada Diamantina region in the state of Bahia. The workshop with my dear Lorenzo, Sebastian and Sophie will always be remembered in the years to come as one of the greatest and intense life’s adventures. As always, we tried to find poetry within the quotidian with the same determination and deep love. And we found it in the incredible and generous people that we met, in the breath-taking landscapes, in the moving feasts, in the long walk and in that grotto where the garimperos’ legacy still lives on. In fact these diamond’s miners gave the name to the enormous region that has been luckily protected by the Brazilian government. The more time goes by and the more I understand the importance to find life in the smallest, trivial and ridiculous details that our existence rewards us with at each instant as my beloved writer Fernando Pessoa reminds us. The students’ images deserve to be relished and listened to with the same sweetness of the lyrics by the great Bahian singer Jauperi whose music accompanied us in this memorable, intimate journey. EB
