A artist, researcher and photojournalist Sirli Freitas occupies one of the rooms of the Immigration Museum of the State of São Paulo with the exhibition ‘Chegança – a place in the sun, a place in the south’. The exhibition, which brings together photographs, video letters and installation, can be visited until December 3, in the capital of São Paulo.
Developed over five years, the exhibition portrays the process of Haitian immigration in Santa Catarina, mainly from the Haitian community in the city of Chapecó, which is in the western region of Santa Catarina. “I tried to record, through images and video letters, this sensitive process of leaving your country of origin and moving away from home. Chegança talks about arriving, joining forces with your loved ones and remaining”, shares the photographer.
The work started in 2018 addresses three thematic axes, which, according to the researcher, were listed by Haitians as fundamental in the immigration process: food, spirituality and beauty.
“Chegança seeks to bring, through art and culture, social, ethical and aesthetic capital, for a full dialogue with society and also proposes a new perspective on the people portrayed. So much so that much more than a temporary exhibition of an artist from the interior, in one of the main capitals of Brazil, the exhibition is a historical-cultural document”, he adds.
About the artist
Graduated in Social Communication from the Regional Community University of Chapecó – Unochapecó, with a Specialization in Literature, Language and Literature from the same institution, Sirli Freitas works as a photojournalist and cultural producer. Recipient of the Marc Ferrez Photography Prize through Funarte, in 2021, in the same year, she was part of the first “Collection of Minizines Só Edições”, which highlighted the research of 10 Brazilian photographers. She is one of the creators of the First Kaingang Multimedia Museum in Santa Catarina, recognized by Iphan in the 35th edition of the Rodrigo Mello Franco de Andrade Award and the project “A Casa é um mar full de ports”, where she records the migration process from different axes. His work and photographic research is a dive into cultures that are on the margins of society, and is directly linked to the culture of indigenous and cabocla peoples. In 2023 she produced her first short film, Paraíso Kaingangscheduled to premiere in 2024 and his next photographic project, These fields that inhabit me, portraying the caboclos of Western Santa Catarina.
