A BRUSH

WITH LIGHT
Exhibition / Screening /
Symposium / Workshops
Published 2010

Copyright © 2010
A Brush With Light

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may

be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photography, recording or any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in
writing from Celia Jackson

Design by Duncan Gravestock.

Foreword by Celia Jackson & Humphry Trevelyan
Printed in UK by Sharman & Company Ltd and
paper supplied by Sharman & Company Ltd.

Cover Image: ‘Hagakure II’ By Miguel Chikaoka 2010

A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
FOTOATIVA: LIGHT AND LIGHTNESS
Fotoativa is a collective of photographers in the eastern
Amazon that has been working together since 1982. They
are based in the city of Belém in the state of Pará at the
mouth of the Amazon, a declining seaport of nearly 2
million people, surrounded by intensive agrobusinesses,
riverside and island communities, and further afield large
tracts of rainforest. The city combines burgeoning high
rise apartment blocks and large areas of 19th and early
20th century town housing, enriched with newly restored
18th and 19th century churches, municipal buildings, fine
squares and parks, the clutter of riverside markets, the roar
of buses, and the daily drumming of rain.
From its start, inspired by the radical ideas of Miguel
Chikaoka, and the innovative work of photographers like
Patrick Pardini and Elza Lima, Fotoativa has evoked a
particular philosophy of the photographic image and its
relationship to individual creativity and the community.
The famous ‘oficinas’ (workshops) held in Fotoativa’s
premises, and in communities in the city and countryside,
encourage both novice and experienced artist to explore
the fundamental properties of light, the creation of the
frame as a function of the individual gaze (‘olhar’), and
the individual’s response to their surroundings and culture.
The photographers of Pará talk about the light of the great
skies, the water, the forests, the communities that make
their lives at the rivers edge, the city that merges with the
communities, the sense of shared history in a region that is
happy to feel separate from the larger Brazil to the south.
INTRODUCTION
From the now iconic work of the first generation of Fotoativa
that mapped in light the social and creative culture of
a whole region, the second generation – Paula Sampaio,
Flavia Mutran, Mariano Klautal, Walda Marques, Alfredo Bitar,
Guy Veloso, Alexandre Sequeira and many others – in most
cases introduced to photography through the collective
action of Fotoativa - have pursued with extraordinary
clarity the different routes and pathways that the pursuit
of light might lead to. The migrant communities of the
highways, the hidden histories and narratives of the city
itself, the extravagant rituals of a people at one with their
spirituality, synchretic and received, the human response to
an overwhelming natural world of vegetation, the narratives
of imagination and dream: this diversity of vision is held
together by a common reference point, a shared learning
and continuing discussion and debate.
And now the third generation is spreading its wings, with
a diversity and fluency that reflects the effortlessnes of the
contemporary means of communication. There is a sense
that the combination of the material, artesanal approach
to light and the image combines even more closely
with the eclecticism of the digital and virtual. Memories
communicated and re-ordered in bytes, recognising and
respecting the revolutionary simplicity and openness of the
pinhole camera, and exploring the new representation.
NEWPORT: DRAWN WITH LIGHT
One of my earliest memories of Newport is of a windy
riverbank, tangled with long grass and brambles, near the
old art college (as we called it) with its distinctive green
dome, in Clarence Place. I was crouching in front of
a shoebox that I had fashioned into a pinhole camera
with little more than black paper and tinfoil. As it was
a grey morning the light was poor, and I had to wait a long
time - nine minutes - to take my self-portrait. Good-natured
men on their way to the Labour Exchange (long since
demolished) asked questions and offered advice;
a dog bumped my shoebox camera; the wind blew in gusts,
bringing spatters of raindrops. The resultant picture was
a revelation: my hair was a weird fuzzy mass (Eraserhead
springs to mind) and my mouth was no more than
a blur, for I had spoken to so many curious passers-by. The
simplicity of my primitive camera belied the complexity of
the image it produced; this was the beginning of my affair
with photography, and with Newport itself.

A Brush with Light has always had at its heart the city
and the inhabitants of Newport. What began as an
almost desultory conversation about the joys of primitive
technologies - particularly the use of the pinhole camera -
in respect of photographic representation has developed,
over the last 18 months, into an ambitious and multi-
stranded project that draws together a disparate range of
practitioners from Wales and from Belem in Para, Brazil.
Their common ground is a preoccupation with the status of
the photographic image and with the use of photography
as a tool of philosophical enquiry. There is a rich history
of photography in Newport (it was first taught here in
1906) and projects such as the Newport Survey have
been influential in shaping how its inhabitants view the
city. Belem, too, has a long and honourable tradition of
photographic activity, especially in terms of participatory
workshops and informal exhibitions based in both urban
and rural communities.
An important element of A Brush with Light has been
the programme of photography workshops led by Miguel
Chikaoka, founder member of Fotoativa, that took place
in a temporary darkroom at the Riverfront Theatre and
Arts Centre. They involved a number of staff and student
volunteers from the University who worked with members
from Urban Circle, a youth organisation based in the
city centre whose objectives are to engage, support and
empower while offering an open access ‘safe space’.
Subsequent workshops involved the refugee community of
Newport in what, we hope, has proved a powerful bonding
exercise. We are celebrating the achievements of all
workshop participants by exhibiting their work in changing
displays in and around the Riverfront that are highly
visible and accessible to all. At the same time, we hope
to communicate the idea of photography as something
more than the ubiquitous mobile phone or digital camera
images that relentlessly pervade everyday life. A camera
may be as simple as a cardboard box with a hole at
one end and a piece of paper at the other: the light
does the rest.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
CONTRIBUTORS
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
ALBERTO BITAR
Born in Belém in 1970.
Started his photographic
practice in 1991
participating in workshops
at Fotoativa. Has exhibited
in collective and individual
exhibitions, notably Solitude
(1994) and Hecate (1997).
Awarded special prize at the
Salão Arte Pará
CONTRIBUTORS
Belém-Para 2005
Ausencia
Video
2003 for his video Doris, and
in the same year a bursary
to produce the video
Enquanto Chove by the
Instituto de Artes Pará. In
2005 he gained first prize for
best video at the 2nd Belém
Festival of Brazilian Cinema
for his video Partida.

ALEXANDRE ROMARIZ SEQUEIRA
Born 1961, Belém-Pará.
Graduate in Architecture
at the UFPA, Belém, 1983.
Lecturer at the Instituto
de Ciencias da Arte, UFPA,
in semiotics and Visual
Arts. Solo exhibitions
include Itau Cultural,
Sao Paulo, 2007; and
‘Impressoes de um Lugar’
Belém, 2004, based on his
groundbreaking work with
the community of Nazaré de
Mojacú (represented in the
exhibition). Collective shows,
not including frequent
participations in Belem, Pará
from 1983 to the present,
include ‘X Bienal de Havana/
CUBA’ 2009; ‘Sangue Novo’,
Museo Bispo de Rosario,
São Paulo, 2008; Creative
Residency, Centre Culturale
Engramme, Quebec, Canada,
2007; Bienal Internacional
de Liège, Belgium, 2006;
‘O Que e Normal’ FUNARTE/
Brasilia, Brazil, 2006; ‘Une
Certain Amazonie’, Paris
2005.
Nazaré de Mocajuba, Pará 2005
Panos
Digital
He brings the printed cloths
that formed the core of his
work with the community
of Nazaré do Mocajuba,
Pará (2004/5), and his
more recent project ‘Meu
Mundo Teu’ (My World, Your
World), 2007, involving
the exchange of images
between young people living
in urban and rural Pará,
using pinhole and digital
cameras.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
BRENDAN BERRY
Since graduating in 2009
from the University of Wales,
Newport, Brendan has been
working as a self-employed
photographic artist from his
base in Cambridge, England.
His work, often focused
around the environment and
the relationship between
art and science, explores
abstracted views of nature
and evokes his particular
interest in fantasy.
Image 1
On The Arrow of Time
2010
In June 2009, Ashley Givens,
curator of photography
at the Victoria & Albert
Museum, selected Brendan’s
work as one of the most
promising talents from 2009
UK graduates. His work
has also received acclaim
through recently exhibiting
at galleries in London and
Bristol.
CONTRIBUTORS
Brendan has currently been
undertaking his commission
for ‘A Brush with Light’,
as well as interning for
London based photographic
magazine, ‘HotShoe’ and
continuing an independent
project entitled, ‘Intimate
Distance’.
 La vida d’un Artista (series)
5x4 pinhole photograph,
silver gelatin print
2010
CELIA JACKSON
Celia Jackson has lived
and worked in Wales for
the last twenty years. Issues
of mutability lie at the
heart of her practice, much
of which is rooted in an
extended meditation upon
the treacherous and elusive
medium of photography.
In her hands the Most of the time she Such images often bear
photographic process is uses a pinhole camera, a little resemblance to their
revealed as an agent of deceptively simple device referents: soft and blurred,
transformation - rather that produces strange, fragmentary and layered,
than reflection - of the unsettling images saturated they speak instead of the
real, congruent with the with emotion and nostalgia, artist’s inner life, of the
translation of ideas and whose complexity belies the chaotic nature of subjective
subjective responses from simplicity and purity of the reality that time and again
the imagination into the camera itself. threatens to overthrow the
visual image. controlled mechanisms of
public life.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
CORINNE GARTMANN
Corinne Gartmann is
a photographer and
printmaker living and
working in Monmouthshire.
She is currently completing
a Masters Degree in
Printmaking at the University
of Wales Newport.Corinne
draws her inspiration
CONTRIBUTORS
from the landscape and
people of Monmouthshire.
Recent work has included a
series of screen-prints based
on figurative war memorials
in and around South East
Wales which was exhibited
at the Riverfront in January
this year.
Rio Trombetas
Keith, refuse loader
Digital photograph
2010
B & W negative
Rio Trombetas
Pará 1996
ELZA LIMA
A photographer since 1984,
she has focused much of
her gaze on the riverside
communities of the Lower
Amazon, with projects
such as the ‘Rota d’agua’
project in the Rio Trombetas
(1996), documenting the
‘quilombo’ communities of
Afro-Brazilians, and a series
of visits to eight indigenous
peoples in the states of Para
and Maranhao, (1996-1999)
funded by the Fundaçao
Nacioanl do Indio (Funai).
Two projects between
1999 and 2003 traced
the journeys of Amazonian
explorers such as Otille
Coudreau, first woman
photographer of the Amazon,
and Francisco Orellano,
one of the early colonial
explorers. This immersion in
the historic representations
of the Lower Amazon and the
documentation of its various
communities has given
her work an extraordinary
sensitivity to the cultural and
emotional world constructed
by these peoples, a subtlety
of interpretation of their
raison d’etre, their mirror
on their own world. Elza
Lima’s work is archived in
museums and foundations
across Brazil, and in
Portugal. She holds the title
of official photographer to
the Executive Secretariat of
Culture of the State of Pará ,
undertaking documentation
of the cultural life of the
Lower Amazon region.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
Bioshot
Digital / Scanned
Brazil 2009
FLAVIA MUTRAN
After studying architecture,
then journalism, her early
professional work was based
in photojournalism, while she
became involved in Fotoativa
in 1986. Her first recognised
work was developed through
the series ‘Caixa de Pandora’
(1992-94), followed by the
‘Pandoras de Agua’ series
in 1996, alongside her
‘Palimpsesto’ series (1995-
96). ‘Quase Memoria’ (2000-
04) explored the fragility of
the relationship between
materiality and memory.
Her most recent work
includes the ‘EGOSHOT’
series, taking images from
social networking sites to
construct representations
of people who do not exist,
unreal and distorted avatars
of the web world. BIOSHOT
(2009) and ‘THERE’S NO
PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1’ (2010)
develop the theme of the
accumulation, combination
and distortion of web-based
portraits into model-matrixes
CONTRIBUTORS
of male and female,
achieving improbable
physiognomic representations
of memory and forgetfulness.
Currently engaged in research
into poetics in the context of
new technologies and their
impact on photography and
the image.
GUY VELOSO
Born in Belem 1969.
Graduated in Law, working as
independent photographer
since 1988. His work has
been published in the
UK (University of Essex
Collection of Latin American
Art), Portugal (Coleçao
Nacional de Fotografia,
Centro Portuguese de
Fotografia, Porto) and across
Brazil, and he pioneered the
first live web private view in
Brazil (1998).
Since 2005 he has taken
on the curation of a number
of photographic shows in
Brazil. Veloso’s work has
been described as provoking
a certain discomfort,
a certain strangeness,
articulating a complex
dissonance between the
real world and other worlds
(Máttar, Firmo). His images
focus on the intensity and
passion of the penitent, the
religious cult, while
locating this intensity within
the popular communities
from which it emerges.
Working entirely in reversal
film, his images shine with
a sharpness and intensity
of colour, and precisely
delineate the often awkward
shapes of religious devotion.
Penitentes
Kodachrome, Leica
Pará 2003
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
IONALDO RODRIGUES
Born Belém, graduated
in Social Science at the
Federal University of Pará
(UFPA). Participated in
Fotoativa workshops in
2004, including cyanotype
and caliotype workshops.
The series ‘The Asphalt
Garden in Artesanal
Photography’ was produced
with a grant from the IAP
(Arts Institute of Pará).
Received an award to
participate in the 2nd Salon
SESC of Contemporary Art in
Higher Education (2009).
CONTRIBUTORS
Co-coordinator of the
‘Café Fotografico’ project
at Fotoativa. Ionaldo’s work
explores how developments
in mapping technology
can interact with more
conventional forms of
photographic representation.
At the same time, his
pinhole work introduces
a sense of the cinematic
image, while his essays in
cyanotype printing invoke
the vegetal themes of other
photographers.
Google map, digital master
Cidade Satélite 1
Belém-Pará 2009

IRENE ALMEIDA
Irene Almeida Started her
photographic career in 1996
through her involvement
in the activities of Fotoativa.
Almeida has participated
in many collective
exhibitions in Belém, and
was awarded 2nd prize in
the Prêmio Salão Primeiros
Passos – CCBEU 2001.
B & Wprint from negative.
Círio de Vigia.
2006
Currently teaches Camera
Obscura and Camera
Artesenal at the Curro
Velho cultural centre and
at Fotoativa, supports the
Colóquio de Fotografia
e Imagem and the Café
Fotografico and has been
par t of the directorate of
Fotoativa since 2007.
 A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
Semelhança Cabocia 2
35mm colour negative
Belém-Pará 2009
JOSE DE ALMEIDA VIANA JUNIOR
Born in Belém 1989.
Started his photographic
practice participating in
the workshops at Fotoativa,
Belém, and currently
colllaborates in their
Nucleo de Formação e
Experimentacão. Exhibited
in the ‘Surra de Arte’ show at
the Atelier Cultural Corredor
Polonês, Belém, 2009, and
in the XVIII Salão de Arte
Primeiros Passos – CCBEU,
CONTRIBUTORS
and in the Inicial – Fotografia
Contemporânea Paraense,
2010. He hopes to uncover
new natural, social and
artistic horizons through the
documentation of people,
places and landscapes,
‘researching the invisible that
permeates contemporary
human society and its
relationship with time’. He
is completing his studies in
Social Communication at the
Faculty of Pará.
JOYCE NABIÇA
Joyce Nabiça was born
in Belém in 1981, and
came into contact with
photography in 2001 at the
Curro Velho Foundation,
a cultural centre based in
inner city Belém, offering
classes in a wide range of
creative disciplines, in the
same year she became
involved in Fotoativa. In 2007
she started to document
the culture of the riverside
communities
on the outskirts of the
city, using principally
pinhole cameras. She has
participated in the famous
Pinhole Day exhibitions at
Fotoativa since 2003, and
exhibited work at the ‘Mostra
de Artes Primeiros Passos’,
CCBEU 2007, ‘O Eterno
Feminino’, Belém 2008, and
’Fotoativa Pará –Cartografias
Contemporaneas’, SESCE
Pompeia e Santana, 2009.
Since 2007 she has been
developing a project in the
Vila de Barca community,
applying the poetry,
subjectivity and uncertainty
that characterises pinhole
photography, providing an
alternative viewpoint of this
established but threatened
riverside community.
Pinhole colour negative
Festa 3
2008
 A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
Bla bla bla
DV Video
c. 2006
LUCIANA MAGNO
Born in Belém 1987. The loss
of any visual record of her
earlier family life created an
absence which led her to
initiate a search for image,
and she attended Chikaoka’s
Photo Morphosis workshops
at Fotoativa in 2003.
CONTRIBUTORS
Since then she has
participated in a number
of collective exhibitions,
salons, and seminars, and
was a founder member of
the group ‘Espiandomundo’,
associated with Fotoativa. Her
work includes the artesanal
(pinhole), documentary, and
more recently video.
Graduated in Visual Arts and
Technology at the University
of the Amazon, she is
studying for a Masters in
Arts at the Federal University
of Pará. She has gained
awards at the Salão SESC de
Arte Contemporânea Belém
2008, the Grande Premio
Arte Pará 2009, and the
Premio FOTOARTE Brasilia
2009.

MARIANO KLAUTAU FILHO
Born in Belém, Brazil in
1964. He lives and works in
Belém, as photographer and
researcher, and gained his
Masters in Communication
and Semiotics at the
Pontificia Universidade
Catolica in São Paulo. He is
a Lecturer in Photography at
the University of the Amazon,
Belém, and has won the
Grand Prize - Art of Pará, in
2001 and 2007.
He has exhibited in Brazil and
beyond, including Mexico,
Uruguay, Argentina, Germany,
Spain, and France. His work
is held in collections at the
Museo de Fotografia, Curitiba,
Brasil, at the Museo do
Estado do Pará – Belém, and
the Joaquim Paiva Collection
at the Museum of Modern Art,
São Paulo (MAM).
His work in recent years has
focused on the emotional
narratives embodied in the
architecture and design of
the city. His long-running
series ‘Materia Memoria’
started in 2002, and explores
the possibility of developing
cinematic resonances in
sequences of images that
Paisagens da Janela
Colour negative on print;
scanned oil on canvas.
c. 2005
reflect on intimacy and
memory, with the ‘Paisagens
da Janela’ series, reflecting
the paintings of Edward
Hopper, the latest stage
in this development.
Current experiments in
quasi-cinematic motion
complement his narrative
projects.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
MIGUEL CHIKAOKA
Miguel Chikaoka,
photographer and educator
by choice, has lived in
Belém – Pará since 1980.
He created Fotoativa
in 1982, since when it
has become a critical
centre for the formation
of a great number of
contemporary photographers
in Pará. Experimenting in
interdisciplinary approaches
to photographic education,
Chikaoka has established
a unique methodology
CONTRIBUTORS
B & W 35mm negative
Espelho d’agua
Pará
of light which has won Chikaoka started his Apart from publications in the
international recognition. photographic career press and electronic media
The guiding principles of in the 1980’s, creating of Brazil and overseas, his
his work find an echo in photo-reportage and work is placed in the archives
the educational practices documentaries for a of museums in São Paulo,
that recognise the number of publications, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, New
importance of constructing and in the early 1990’s he York and Paris. Chikaoka will
a consciousness of world created his own Kamara be showing a new version
citizenship, and his focus Ko photographic agency, of his celebrated ‘Hagakure’
on the philosophical based in Belém – Pará, work, expressly created for
understanding of light producing reportages and ‘A Brush With Light’, that
and image has been documentaries about the expresses the extent to which
seminal in the work of social environment of his practice is influenced by
three generations of Amazonia. Eastern thought.
photographers in Brazil.

NAILANA THIELY
Born in Belém, Pará,
1981. Graduated in Social
Communications and
Graphic Design. Since
2002 she has worked
in photojournalism and
illustration. She has
exhibited in galleries and
collective shows across
Brazil, receiving awards
such as the Secult Prize in
Visual Arts, and scholarships
including the Study Abroad
Bursary for research into
Visual Arts based in Quebec,
Canada (2009).
Her first solo exhibition was in
2005, based on the rescuing
of the memories of the
inhabitants of communities
on the periphery of Belém,
Para, through their family
records. Her association with
Fotoativa began through
workshops. She works in
editorial and photojournalism
for a range of publications
across Brazil.
Belém – Pará 2009
Digital
Subaquatica 13
Her work has a focus and
execution that creates space
for unexpected elements of
identification and reflection.
The series ‘Chuva’ (Rain)
explores the context of the
ever-present experience of
water in tropical Para, and is
extended in examples of her
most recent works, ‘Du sang
en Ciel’, ‘Watertears’ and
‘Subaquatica’.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
NEIL SMITHSON
Smithson has worked for
over sixteen years as a
mixed media artist, using a
combination of traditional
skills and techniques,
combined with photography
and digital technologies
to create hybrid visual
outcomes. He has also been
involved in arts education in
technical and lecturing roles
since 2001; he currently
teaches at the University
of Wales, Newport, in the
Department of Design.
He has worked on a range
of private commissions,
including painted works sold
throughout the Channel
Islands and Wales, as well
as illustration projects for
printed outcomes in both
the private and commercial
markets. He has illustrated
and designed fantasy
artwork for literature, band
logos, DVD/CD and book
design. Smithson has also
produced branding solutions
and graphic treatments for
companies such as the
CONTRIBUTORS
Old George
Light Box
2010
Wales Millennium Centre
and Gwent Independent
Film Trust, as well as events
companies working for
clients such as Bacardi and
the MTV awards. Smithson
is currently studying
for a Masters degree in
Printmaking at the University
of Wales, Newport where he
is developing new skills that
will complement his range
of theoretical and technical
disciplines.
PATRICK PARDINI
Born in Niteroi, Rio de
Janeiro, and resident in
Belém. A founder member
of Fotoativa, between 1983
– 1993 he realised a series
of documentaries on the
Amazon region, including an
archive project based in the
‘quilombos’ – Afro-Brazilian
– communities on the Rio
Trombeta of Para, and a year
later collaborated on an
audiovisual documentation
of the lives of adolescents in
rural Amazonia, in
assocoiation with the
Kamera Ko agency. After a
five year residency in Amiens,
France (1995-99) where
he curated the ‘Une Autre
Amazonie’ and ‘Mondial
Hors Champ’ exhibitions,
Pardini returned to Belém
wher he started his most
recent and current project.
‘Arborescência’ is based on
research into the relationship
between humans and nature,
civilisation and forest.
Pardini seeks to redefine
the look of the spectator
faced with representations
of nature and its complexity,
and rejects the simplistic
opposition of natural versus
industrial. Pardini has
exhibited widely in Brazil,
Latin America and Europe.
B & W negative
Arborêscente
Belém-Pará
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
PAULA SAMPAIO
Paula Sampaio was born
in Belo Horizonte, Minas
Gerais, Brazil in 1965,
and has lived in Belém
since 1982. Graduating in
Social Communication, she
undertook graduate study
in Communication and
Semiotics. Her photographic
career began in 1987,
working in photojournalism,
and she became involved
in the activities of Fotoativa.
She currently works for the
‘O Liberal’ newspaper, and at
the Instituto de Artes do Pará.
Her principal photographic
focus has been on the
communities that live on
the edges of the principal
highways of the Amazon
region, in particular the
Transamazonica and Belém-
Brasilia. This work, which
started in 1990, has received
a number of bursaries and
awards, and has continued
during the last ten years.
Her most recent work, ‘Terra
de Negro ‘ documents the
Quilombo (Afro-Brazilian)
communities of Pará.
CONTRIBUTORS
Paula Sampaio
B&W negative
Pará 1996
Sampaio’s images are
striking and often oblique
representations of the
human and literally earthly
environment of the migrant
communities along the
highways, and have become
iconic within Brazil and
beyond. At the same time,
her work fiercely protects the
dignity and privacy of the
people she works with, and
serves as an object lesson
in the long term relationship
between photographer and
community.
 Crescer pra que

Belém-Pará 2009
Digital
RAFAEL PINHEIRO ARAUJO Born Belém 1986. Graduated
in Marketing (CESUPA 2007)
and Comunicaçao Social
UFPA 2009. Attended the
Photomorphosis’ workshop,
led by Miguel Chikaoka, April
2010. Rafael has exhibited
collectively in Brazil and
Cambodia, and received
awards at the Concurso
SEST/SENAT Arte em
Movimento, Belém 2008. His
work explores the relatively
unrecognised culture of
communities dominated by
the river and the small scale
industries that live from it.
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT
silver gelatin print
Amy
2010
SIOBHAN CANAVAN
Siobhan Canavan studied on
the BA (Hons) Documentary
Photography course at the
University of Wales, Newport,
graduating in 2009. She
lives and works in London
and has undertaken a
number of commissions
and internships, including
Running in Heels and
Burberry respectively.
Whatever the request,
Siobhan is insistent upon
using her Holga camera,
with which she produces
the dreamy, dematerialised
images that are her
trademark. She prefers the
softness of the Holga’s
images to the pin-sharp
digital technologies with
which the photographic
marketplace is currently
swamped. Her highly
distinctive style is instantly
CONTRIBUTORS
recognisable and her
steadfast commitment to
black-and-white film evokes
a wistfulness and nostalgia
for childhood and times
gone by. For A Brush with
Light Siobhan has created
an atmospheric short film
featuring green spaces and
places of interest or beauty
in Newport, and entitled ‘A
Welsh Picture Story’.
She wishes to convey how
valuable a tool photography
can be in the contemplation
of past events, and to invite
the viewer to question why
one chooses to capture and
document certain moments
over others.
WALDA MARQUES
Marques worked for 17
years in make-up for
theatre, TV and studio
photography, and developed
her photographic practice
through the workshops
of Miguel Chikaoka at
Fotoativa. She established
a portrait studio in 1989, in
collaboration with Otavio
Cardoso, and has developed
a series of ‘fotonovelas’
whose narratives are based
on texts, illustrations and
photographic images.
Walda has gained awards
in the Salao de Fotografia
do Centro Cultural Brasil-
Estados Unidos, Belém 1997,
the Abra/Coca-Cola project,
São Paulo 1998, and the
Salãão de Arte Parã in 1997
and 2007. She has exhibited
at the Musueum of Modern
Art (MAM) São Paulo in 2003,
2005 and 2006, amongst
many other exhibitions
across Brazil.
Amongst her outstanding
work is the series of portraits
of the women of the Ver o
Peso market, Belem,
a project that she developed
in collaboration with Miguel
Chikaoka. Her work is about
the feminine universe,
an ironic and passionate
account of the world of
desire, love, hope, disillusion,
laced with echos of tabus
and sensuality.
Belém-Pará 2009
Digital
Noiva 2
A BRUSH WITH LIGHT

A BRUSH WITH LIGHT WOULD

LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING:

Project Co-ordinators
Celia Jackson
Humphry Trevelyan

Project Co-ordinator / Curator, Brazil

Patricia Costa

Curator, Wales
Celia Jackson

Assistant Curator, Brazil

Ionaldo Rodrigues

Assistant co-ordinator, Brazil

Luciana Magno

Catalogue Design
Duncan Gravestock

Epsilon printing
Ian Llewelyn
Gawain Barnard

Fabrication & installation

Matthew Harris

Special thanks to:

Nick Cadman
Miguel Chikaoka
Geraint Cunnick
Emmy Chater
Paul Davies
Michael Goode
Derek Lawther
Denis Lewis
Mohamad ‘Fez’ Miah
Chris O’Malley
Jason Small
Nic Young