Araquém Alcântara

By LatAm ARTE

Born in Florianópolis, he moved to São Paulo, where he took a journalism course at USP. He lived most of his life in Santos and now lives in São Paulo. He is considered by critics as one of the precursors of nature photography in Brazil. He was the first photographer to document all of Brazil's national parks. Araquém prioritizes photography as a plastic expression and instrument of social transformation. He is considered by many to be one of the most combative Brazilian artists in defense of environmental heritage. He has acted on the front line several times against illegal deforestation in the Amazon, portraying in his photos all the horrors of the destruction of this biome. In 2019, he launched a work dedicated to the culture and memory of Brazil called Brasileiros. Work Between 1987 and 1998, the photographer visited all Brazilian national parks, from this work came his most famous work, Terra Brasil (Editora Melhoramentos-1997) which became the best-selling photography book in Brazil in recent times, with more than one hundred thousand copies sold. He produced the cover of the book "Unknown Amazon" for the British Museum in 2001 and photos for the exhibition of the same name. He is the first Brazilian photographer to produce an unprecedented work for National Geographic, the special collector's edition "Bichos do Brasil". Among his main works are the books Terra Brasil from 1998, Pantanal, 2005, Mar de Dentro, 2006, Amazônia, 2013 and Jaguaretê in 2018. In 2019 he launched another successful online sales work called Brasileiros. A collection of photos of the authentic Brazilian people taken during the photographer's 50-year career

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