Sebastio Salgado | Mountain Zebra

Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery 

Sebastião Salgado was a Brazilian-born artist-activist based in Paris. Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in 1973, working with various agencies, including Sygma, Gamma and Magnum Photos. In 1994, he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed Amazonas Images, an agency created exclusively for his work. Since the 1990s, Salgado and Wanick worked tirelessly on the restoration of a portion of the Atlantic Forest in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. In 1998, they succeeded in turning this land into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to reforestation, conservation, environmental education and sustainable rural development.

Salgado is celebrated for his black-and-white photographs that document the impact of globalisation on workers in developing nations. Describing his approach as photographing from inside the circle, Salgado lived with his subjects for weeks and immersed himself in their environment. As such, his images reflect a deep sense of empathy and respect, capturing the fragility and strength of the human spirit.

Mountain Zebras is part of Salgado’s long-term project Genesis (2004–2011), which the artist called his love letter to the planet. Genesis comprises breathtakingly beautiful black-and-white photographs of majestic landscapes, serene wildlife and ancient civilisations untouched by modern society. The series features scenes in remote locales: surreal icebergs in Antarctica, the isolated Zo’é tribe in Brazil, monumental crevices in Arizona’s Grand Canyon and Africa’s native animals in Kafue National Park, Zambia. The Genesis project, along with the Salgados’ Instituto Terra, reflect a dedication to showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done to it and preserving it for the future.