Amazônia - O fim do verde [Amazon – The end of green]
At the start of the millennium, I began to immerse myself in the green.
In the midst of the dense jungle, I found razed fields, scattered islands, the immense solitude of trees.
The trees of the Amazon are so alone. They seem imbued with the heightened awareness and stillness common to only the survivors of vast destruction. Persevering - a solitary stilt, a dog left on the riverbank, a rower, a waterfall, a boat - together they compose unforgettable inner landscapes.
Silent green, Amazon green. Or better - a plurality of greens. Greens that can‘t be captured by infrared. The camera captures other colours. These greens are only human perception.
These greens appear in this series of images as ghosts. As if the colour wasn't there. As if the leafy bodies of the trees were just a memory.
Shadowy figures. The images warn us: even if one day the millennial regal presence of the vegetation were not able to withstand the violence shown it, its spirit will live on in tones of white, yellow, and pink.
The greens of these photographs are like a scent.
Yet, despite this tightening, increasingly circumscribed, threatened life, the trees are still there, standing in their greenness, perceptible to the human eye. And it is this diversity that the indigenous peoples know so clearly how to distinguish and to recognise.
There are those, however, who don‘t see it. What kind of filter stops them from seeing?
I photograph the detail of each tree in the midst of the expanse of deep blue rivers. I witness and record the trees and man. I contemplate this vast aquatic desert as if looking into a mirror. Looking for answers. Perhaps we will find an answer soon, before the end of the green.
The photographer Betina Samaia was born in 1964 in São Paulo, and graduated in Psychology from PUC-SP.
Her work seeks to capture images of the unconscious, moving freely between the past and the present, and reality and imagination.
Her series Coreografia do Caos [The choreography of chaos], Florestas do Imaginário [Forests of the imagination], Noturnos [Nocturnals], Amazônia - fim do Verde [Amazon], Índia - Memórias do que nunca ví [India], and África [Africa], have been exhibited at numerous solo and group shows in Brazil, France and the USA.
Over the past decade, her photographic essays have been shown in spaces including the Espace des Arts Sans Frontières, La Quatriéme Image, Magic Brésil, and Carroussel do Louvre (all in Paris); Le Magazyn, California; the Museu Histórico Nacional, Galeria Athena, and Paraty em Foco-Festival internacional de Fotografia in Rio de Janeiro, and the Museu da Imagem e do Som, Galeria Arte 57, and Galeria Valu Oria in São Paulo.
Betina has also published the books Noite afora Noite adentro [Night beyond, Night within] (2017) and Azul [Blue] (2015) with Editora Madalena, and Amazonia - O Fim do Verde [Amazon – The end of green] (2021), with the publishing house Edition Bessard.
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