Remembering Sebastião Salgado: The Photographer of the Planet’s Margins
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In May 2025, the world lost one of the most profound voices in contemporary photography. Brazilian artist Sebastião Salgado (1944–2025) passed away in Paris at the age of 81, leaving behind a body of work that transcends aesthetics—his photographs are a visual testimony to human dignity, environmental destruction, and hope.
His black-and-white images were never just beautiful—they were necessary. With his camera, Salgado documented pain, labor, displacement, and the raw beauty of our planet. And he did so with deep respect, moral clarity, and an unshakable empathy that has inspired generations.
📸 From Economics to the Image
Salgado began his career not as a photographer, but as an economist. He studied in Brazil and France and worked for international institutions. But during work trips through Africa and Latin America, he discovered that his true tool for understanding the world wasn’t data—it was the image.
At age 30, he left everything behind to pursue photography. He soon became a leading photojournalist with agencies such as Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum. He didn’t shoot from a distance—he embedded himself in the lives of his subjects. From gold mines in Brazil to refugee camps in Sudan, his images bore witness without exploiting.
🛠️ Projects That Changed Visual History
Salgado’s work came through ambitious long-term projects, released as books and international exhibitions:
- Workers (1993): a monumental visual epic of physical labor across the globe—in factories, mines, and shipyards.
- Exodus / Migrations (2000): a heartbreaking yet dignified portrait of global displacement and forced migration.
- Genesis (2013): a photographic celebration of unspoiled nature and Indigenous cultures in harmony with the Earth.
- Amazonia (2021): his final large-scale project, a poetic exploration of the Amazon rainforest and its native communities, created over seven years.
Each of these bodies of work invites deep reflection on the connections between humanity, crisis, and beauty. His photographs didn’t beg for pity—they called for consciousness.
🎬 The Salt of the Earth: Portrait of a Witness
In 2014, Sebastião Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and acclaimed director Wim Wenders released the award-winning documentary The Salt of the Earth—a masterful portrait of the artist and his inner world.
The film explores how years of witnessing war, hunger, and injustice led Salgado to emotional burnout. He stopped photographing people for a time. In their place, he turned his lens to nature—initiating Genesis, a project that became both a healing journey and a spiritual reawakening. The film was nominated for an Oscar and won the César Award and the Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
The Salt of the Earth is more than a biography—it’s a meditation on suffering, beauty, and the moral responsibility of the artist.
🌱 Instituto Terra: Restoring the Earth
Together with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado, Sebastião founded the Instituto Terra in 1998, a reforestation project in his native region of Minas Gerais, Brazil. On land once stripped bare by deforestation, they planted over 3 million trees.
This wasn’t a symbolic gesture—it was a literal return of life to the land. For Salgado, environmental action was inseparable from his artistic and human vision.
🕊️ Legacy and Farewell
Salgado was honored by governments, museums, academic institutions, and Indigenous communities. Brazilian President Lula da Silva called him “a voice for humanity.” In France, he was celebrated by the Académie des Beaux-Arts and remembered as a conscience in visual form.
His photographs—shown in institutions like MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and Tate Modern—continue to speak in silence. His images haven’t aged; they remain urgent.
✨ At GONA Gallery: We Keep His Gaze Alive
At GONA Gallery, we believe in art with purpose. Sebastião Salgado’s work reminds us to see beyond the moment, to embrace truth, and to recognize beauty in both the fragile and the powerful.
We invite you to explore his work, read his books, watch The Salt of the Earth, and—like him—plant beauty, resilience, and care wherever you go.
📍 GONA Gallery — Nosara, Costa Rica
🕙 Open Monday to Saturday, 10 AM to 4 PM
🔗 Follow us on Instagram: @gona.gallery
“Photography is my life and my language.” — Sebastião Salgado
And through silence, he still speaks.
No works available for this artist.