PHOTO: © Julieta Piyãko, Kampa do Rio Amônea Indigenous Territory, state of Acre, Brazil, 2016 © SebastiãoSalgado

AMAZÔNIA - PHOTOGRAPHS BY SEBASTIÃO SALGADO im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Köln

Exhibition
In the organizer's words:

"AMAZÔNIA - PHOTOGRAPHS BY SEBASTIãO SALGADO", an exhibition that has already been visited by almost two and a half million people worldwide, is dedicated to the Amazon region - the world's largest rainforest - and its indigenous population. It is celebrating its German premiere at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (RJM) in Cologne and will be on display from October 29, 2025 to March 15, 2026 .

Zurich is the global main partner of the exhibition tour and is making the exhibition in Cologne possible as part of its 150th anniversary in Germany together with the sponsors DEG - Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, KfW Entwicklungsbank and TASCHEN GmbH.

The approximately 200 black and white photographs show the diversity of the Amazonian landscapes as well as the faces and realities of life of the indigenous inhabitants who have been preserving this ecosystem for centuries. The exhibition also includes interviews with indigenous leaders, in which they themselves have their say and talk about their relationships with the world, their knowledge and their experiences in the face of the ongoing destruction of their livelihoods. The immersive installation is accompanied by a soundtrack composed especially for the exhibition by French musician Jean-Michel Jarre. The photographs and interviews were taken over a period of seven years, during which the internationally renowned photographer traveled through the Amazon region.

Amazonia is the largest remaining rainforest in the world and covers an area of over seven million square kilometers across nine countries in South America. Brazil has the largest share, with a land area larger than Western Europe. With this project, Sebastião Salgado wants to highlight the fragility of this unique ecosystem, raise awareness of the threat posed by deforestation, exploitation and climate change and draw attention to the urgency of protecting it. With the exhibition, Salgado honors the role of indigenous communities as guardians of biodiversity, knowledge and cultural diversity - and at the same time warns of the increasing vulnerability of a space that is crucial to the planetary balance.

The exhibition was curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado, wife and long-time companion of Sebastião Salgado. Together with him, she founded the Instituto Terra in 1998, an organization for reforestation in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where more than three million trees have been planted since then.

This content has been machine translated.

Location

Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Cäcilienstraße 29-33 50667 Köln

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