The activism of the image: the political turn in the memories of the “Grupo de Fotógrafos da Bahia”, Brazil

Abstract

This text is a result of an investigation about the collective work of the <<Grupo de Fotógrafos da Bahia>> (Bahia Photographers Group), that acted since 1978 to 1984. We analyzed the documents produced by the group and the press about their activities. After interpretation of members' oral narratives, we crossed them to answer questions about political changes that occurred in 1981. In that year, actions that started as a local movement of fight for authorial rights joined the broadest political context of the defense of freedom speech and democratic overture that has been occurred all over the country in the latest years of military dictatorship. The group had women and men, professional or not of the photographic practice, at that point, came from the countryside or from the capital of the State, Salvador. These photographers used to see their authorial works with images as the possibility of investigative knowledge about the local cultures, like the Afrobrazilian religions, and as a political positioning that was simultaneous to that of others Brazilian social movements.