Black is Beautiful: Diving into the colour of Brazil
Thiago Borba’s photographic series Black is Beautiful (also known via the hashtag #BLVCKSBTFLL and Instagram @tborba) bring together much beauty, both in the number of models portrayed, its concept, and its powerful Afro-Brazilian aesthetic. Born and raised in Salvador da Bahia, Borba spent twelve years away from his home city until he finally found his artistic calling, which, of course had just been waiting in the wings within himself.
Black is Beautiful was born from his desire to return to his roots and to value the strength and black aesthetic that for so long, in his words, "had been at the margins of what was standardised as beautiful." It was for this reason that Borba returned to Salvador after spending two years in Spain, where he took a photography course, and ten more years in São Paulo, where he worked for several major fashion publications (including Vogue, Elle, GQ, and Cosmopolitan).
In his time working in the fashion industry, Borba became more aware of street fashion, which tends to give black people a more prominent role. While still in São Paulo, Borba reconnected with the idea of miscegenation and a lack of distinction between colour and race – something that is a mark of Bahia. With the carnival block Tarado Ni Você, of which he was a co-founder and was set up in tribute to Caetano Veloso, Borba was unconsciously channelling his interest in Afro music, religion and beauty.
Inspired by a previous project, Jeito do Corpo [The Way of the Body], Borba discovered what he actually wanted to do. He says, "I realised that this type of beauty was so often not in the places it deserved to be. I wanted to bring together these worlds, and introduce some warmth."
Warmth, just as in Bahia, is not lacking in Borba’s images, which have captivated admirers and media from all over the world, including those specialising in Afro art and culture.
Restoring black Bahian beauty to its rightful place is just one of the things that make his work so relevant. "#BLVCKSBTFLL encompasses origins, past and future. It gives prominence to black beauty and exposes the power of colonialism in Brazil, especially in Bahia, the cradle of Africa in Brazil," says Borba.
Pedro Henrique França
Thiago Borba was born in the city of Salvador, Bahia. He studied for a bachelor's degree in Marketing at the Faculdades Integradas da Bahia (2001-2005), and then began working with photography in 2006. When he moved to Spain, he worked as an assistant to photographers including Alfonso Zubiaga and Silvia Paredes. A year later, when he returned to Brazil, he settled in São Paulo, where he took photographs for many of the country's major magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and HQ. After 10 years living in the capital, looking back over his work up until that time, the artist decided to go back to his home city and start the Black is Beautiful project #BLVCKSBTFLL. In 2017, together with Caroline Lima, he took part in the photographic exhibition Jeito do Corpo [The way of the Body], which contained 16 photographs that constructed a narrative around the way Bahians move their bodies. Borba then showed eight photographs from the series Corpo Presente [Present Body] in São Paulo’s Espaço Paulista de Arte. In 2018, he contributed seven photographs from his Black is Beautiful series to the exhibition ‘Territori Paralelli’', which brought together fourteen Brazilian artists to represent Brazilian art and design in Milan, Italy. At the end of 2019, he gave his first solo exhibition at the Sunny Art Centre in London, entitled "Hidden Paradise", with thirty-six photographs from the series #blvcksbtfll.
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