Photo Installations
João Castilho’s work deals with the art of surviving in the ruins of industrial mining, how we and nature can sustain ourselves. Minas Gerais in Brazil has been a mining area since the eighteenth century. In the past, gold was mined there. Nowadays, it is mainly iron ore. In the 1990s, the state sold mining interests and operations to private capital. From that moment on, exploitation dramatically increased, and it drastically changed the appearance of this vast landscape. The area hosts the largest concentration of open iron ore mining in the world and was the stage for Brazil’s biggest environmental disasters.
But amid the disintegrating landscape, new life is emerging. In his installations, Castilho makes connections between environments and the various elements that constitute them, living and non-living, human and non-human. We see the landscape, the effects of exploitation but also germination. We see artworks in the country made by prominent artists, acts of creation that paradoxically sprouted there from industrial capital in a tradition spanning from the eighteenth century to the present.
While walking through the landscape, Castilho works to evoke a heightened sensitivity in himself and the viewer, which he sees as a prerequisite for reanimating the area. His works depict how we belong to our earth.
João Castilho (Brazil, 1978) is a ‘Mineiro’, born in the mining area. He makes photo series, installations, collages, videos and sculptures. All his productions focus on thinking about the earth in all its manifestations and dimensions. His work has been shown in many museums and festivals, including the Noorderlicht Festival in 2005.
