The Brazilian photographer Luciano Candisani has toured all the oceans to document the traditional populations linked to the sea. He recently concluded his biggest project on the subject. He spent 35 days immersed on the secular Haenyeo culture. The Haenyeo community are women from 65 to 92 years old from the Jeju Island, in South Korea. These women dive only with the air of their lungs and up to 10 meters deep, where they remain for two minutes searching for octopus, fishes, shells and other seafood.

“Haenyeo is a milestone in Luciano’s career. The gallery displays a rehearsal in which Candisani combines the essence of document photography to the aesthetic of a artistic photography. All of this in a blunt acquis, either in quantity, either in quality”, says the editor Mônica Schalka, from Vento Leste, responsible for the exhibition and the book.

More than extractivists, the haenyeo women maintain living customs that emerged on the Jeju Island four centuries ago, when a socio political conjuncture triggered the exodus of men and drove women to the bottom of the sea for survival. They went in search of sustenance of their families without suspecting that they would found a cohesive cultural tradition that today is included in Unesco’s list of  intangible cultural patrimony of humanity and celebrated in the whole world for the universal values that carries:sustainability, belonging and woman force.

Now the exciting series of images, taken after two trips to the island, appear together for the first time in exhibition and book, both produced by the publisher Vento Leste. The exhibition at MIS, institution of Secretariat of Culture and Creative economy of the State of São Paulo, starting 31 of August, within the program of FOTO MIS - annual event dedicated to photography.

In 2017, the work of the photographer in Jeju was also theme of a feature film Haenyeo: the sea power, directed by Lygia Barbora (TruLab) and broadcasted by the channel National Geographic presented in the exhibition.

Immersive and sensorial, the Haenyeo’s exhibition Women of the Sea has an expographic project of Atelier Marko Brajovic. The exhibition will be situated on the second floor of MIS and will have around 60 photographs in large formats contextualized by the walls that change the grayscale  as the journey begins out of the water, get into the sea, submerge and come back on the air. The sensorial experience and the immersion of the public is potentialized by sounds that equally follow the movements of the natural events of the immersion and breathing, making at times the real sea where the photographs were taken in the Jeju Island, at South Korea. That sound design was developed in partnership with the composer and producer Fábio Goes.

The realization of this project was possible thanks to the publishing company Vento Leste from Mônica Schalka.

Haenyeo, women of the sea

Luciano Candisani

Exhibition and book: Vento Leste publishing company

Expographic project: Atelier Marko Brajovic

Exhibition

Opening for the public: 31 August, saturday, 10am

Local: MIS – Museu da Imagem e do Som (Av. Europa, 158 | Jd. Europa | São Paulo)

Free entrance

Project Team

Author: Atelier Marko Brajovic

Creative Director: Marko Brajovic

Project Director: Bruno Bezerra

Architect: Mayra Shinzaro

Assistant Architect: Giovanna Pirovani

Production: Hybrida Production

Production team: Paula Thyse

Executive Production: Cristina Almeida

Production: Gustavo Marinho

Graphic Design: Adriana Alves

Audio: Fábio Góes

Scenography: Arcode Arquitetura, Comunicação e Design

Lighting: Maxi Áudio Luz Imagem

Graphic Print: Neoprint