‘Social, peripheral and photographic justice for whom?’: A Brazilian photographer asks questions

Recording memories and publishing stories from the urban peripheries is to resist erasure by the established art market

Originally published on Global Voices

This article, written by Léu Britto, was originally published on Agência Mural’s website on May 25, 2025. An edited version is republished here by Global Voices under a partnership agreement.

Amid heated debates about the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and its possible impact on the art market, a question arises: will experience and creativity still have a place in photography from urban peripheral areas? These doubts followed me in the days leading up to May 10, when three other photography enthusiasts and I promoted another edition of FotoBeco (Alley Photos), an exhibition featuring images produced by photographers from São Paulo’s peripheral neighbourhoods.

Every two months, Rogério Vieira, my partner at Sérgio Silva Gallery, and I make a selection to present a photographic series in an alley located on the way out of the Monte Azul Favela, in southern São Paulo. It is a free, public exhibition of the selected artists’ work.

Each artist wins a free print of their work on a canvas of 4 × 2 metres, displaying a synopsis of the piece to members of the public passing by.

We also launched the fan magazine “BECO-Volume 1,” in partnership with the publisher Selo Vertigem, which brought together 30 images from people who believe in the importance of our mission for photography, resisting the market’s modus operandi and its hierarchical commercial structure.

Streets and alleys

My story with photography has two major milestones. The first was in 2007, when I left high school, torn between studying mechanical engineering and journalism. The choice came after photographing, albeit as an amateur, an event known as the State Meeting of the Homeless of São Paulo State.

There, the president of the event, Robson Mendonça, showed me a part of the population facing a situation as difficult as that of life in the favelas — those who didn’t even have a roof over their heads. After that meeting, I decided to fight against the further erasure of marginalized people, of whom I am a part.

The second milestone came a few years later, in 2013, after college, with the Women's Popular Union from Campo Limpo and Surrounding Areas. This institution supported cultural initiatives and the fight for human rights along with the Solano Trindade Popular Agency of Culture, with which I work to this day. That’s how I bought my first professional camera, a second-hand one, which would stay with me for seven years.

And my journey into photography turned into a resistance against the erasure of the idea of how we, as residents of the peripheries, imagine what we are, how we live, and what we think of this unequal world, since our streets and alleys. Be it against the omission of the state or of art that doesn't like to highlight the reality we suffer, or the lack of doors open to us in the bubbles of already established art markets.

In the commercial art market, it seems guaranteed that we won’t even set foot there, unless it’s through the 1 percent quota reserved for Black people, the impoverished, and favela residents.

A market made in Brazil

In Brazil, photography may not be seen as something for people from poorer neighbourhoods, but we continue making and sharing it anyway. This point resonates with the reality of the Brazilian photography market, where, when a portfolio is analyzed, the origin of the photographer and their academic background often seem to carry more weight than the work itself.

Between 2021 and 2023, I was managed by a curator who tried to include me in the market. One day, a client of hers who was buying some photographs saw a photo from my 2021 book “A Gambiologia da Sevirologia” [The Art of Getting By]. At first, he went straight past it and didn’t take any interest, but his wife called him back to it: “Wait, this one is different, I've never seen anything like it in your collection, it’s worth acquiring,” she said.

He asked the curator, “How much is it?” She answered, “BRL 1,000” (around 185 US dollars). He replied, “But who is he? Does he have a CV?” She said: “He has 10 years’ experience; he’s an exponent [of photography] and he has a promising future.” The client said, “As I don't know him, I'll pay BRL 500 for two images.” That same day, he was negotiating the purchase of a series of six photographs by a North American photographer who worked with the people of Peru, and was going to pay 50,000 US dollars for them.

Does this approach consider representation, the breaking of stereotypes, and the power of [including] perspectives from the peripheries in photography? I remember the words of Maria Luiza Meneses, an art curator, who wrote the preface to our zine. “These are photographs that widen the ways of seeing São Paulo’s peripheries, [which are] equally important for the transformation of the collective imaginary.”

A Black professional, she reiterates how this photography can itself be a tool for changing others’ and art markets’ perceptions of these areas.

Those who make this bridge between realities are the new photographers whose images come from a common starting point: their own expression of the reality lived within peripheral neighbourhoods, across the country.

We no longer need “colonizers” to come and record our daily lives; it has been some time since we have been able to do it ourselves. And our local people acknowledge our efforts through the breaking down of cliches about ourselves.

The fight against stereotypes

With each edition of FotoBeco, since December 2023, our determination has strengthened: we show what we record,in the fight against negative stereotypes about our neighbourhoods — favelas, peripheries, and marginalized places — something still unvalued by the market.

Works that highlight the violence against Black bodies, exalt beauty in the midst of chaos, [show] the exotic, are still common representations of poverty, and what generally translates into saleable art.

When we are among them, when they allow us to be there, in general, we cause fright, strangeness, a certain unease. Our origin does not allow creativity and art, only destruction and tragedy, according to the “validators” [of art]. It’s that clichéd way of looking at us: “Wow, how talented you are, in the middle of nothing,” Or “It was your individual effort that enhanced your look.”

This May 2025, even with the rain, over 50 people came to appreciate the works we selected from 200 applications. “The number, perspectives and diversity of images received are an indication of the place that the peripheries occupy in contemporary photographic interest,” Meneses concluded.

I was certain of this as I walked toward the alley. And I wasn’t alone.

“I'm from Taboão da Serra (in São Paulo) and I remember well when I just had a desire to take photographs. I hardly knew the profession; I had no references from people from my neighbourhood who had managed to get there. It seemed out of reach,” said Tuane Fernandes, another member of the selecting panel.

For the established market, most photographers originating in the poorer neighbourhoods, like us, are still disorganized beginners who do not really know what we are trying to express. And then we have the verse from Racionais, one of Brazil's most significant rap groups: “Us here, you there, everybody in their place. Got it?”

My feeling is that this market is only now adapting to our generation, which has come up, qualified, and delivers what they think we should produce. Only we are going further; we are tired of waiting. We are getting ourselves out there, as we say. Creating our networks, opening galleries, doing our festivals, building our collections, and setting the prices of our own works of art.

The reality is there’s no more waiting for the sun to rise. When they say it’s daytime, we are already up well before [that]. We are the generation that eats fresh fruit because we wake up earlier.