MAKING NEW POINTS OF VIEW
This is the column Who Makes Redes, a compilation of the stories of people who build our organization and who work hard every day to do what we do best: actions and projects for residents of Maré. Learn about these stories, trajectories, experiences and the history of Redes da Maré itself - and how this work and the challenges faced since the pandemic have transformed them.
Douglas Lopes (30) is responsible for most of the images and perspectives that tell the stories of Redes da Maré. Born and raised in Maré, he began his studies in analogue and digital photography in his teens, and is currently a photographer and video producer at Redes da Maré's Institutional Communication, in addition to his important independent work in photography.
In 2013, he began attending the Jorge Amado Library, on the Herbert Vianna Cultural Canvas, and from this approach, he developed graphic pieces to publicize the space's activities. He was soon invited to join the team as a photographer and creative content developer. The following year, Douglas gave photography and audiovisual initiation workshops with children from the Not One Less project. In 2017, he was invited to join the institutional communication team as a social media and photographer “to communicate with photojournalism the plurality of the favela, the complaints, powers and rights of the territory with a new point of view in the photo".
His first memories of the territory are of a place of teaching, welcoming, struggles, differences and hope. Even in difficult times, he identifies the capacity for reinvention, strength, and with his work, he hopes to create reflections on this reality: “if one photograph I made changes a little someone's thinking, makes people look at issues, landscapes , events and situations with new eyes of empathy, acceptance and understanding, that for me is everything”, he comments.
For Douglas, seeing up close the work developed by Redes changes people's lives. “Several times I was moved by stories and trajectories that interlace with the work of Redes, following the institution's activities and reports from the newspaper Maré of News.” The most recent emotional situation for him was the installation of signs in ‘Favela da Galinha’: “two boys hugged and celebrated that from that moment on, the street they live in would have a name and a plaque. At the time, people thought it was silly, but I saw an innocence, a truth and a conquest there in that hug”, he says.
In the ‘Maré Says NO to Coronavirus’ campaign, Douglas worked thinking about communication and photographing the actions. “Every day, going out to photograph, edit video, think of ways to communicate Redes' actions in the territory was a new challenge”.
For the post pandemic, the photographer hopes that people have learned to respect differences, that they have more empathy with each other and are more tolerant in order to reduce inequalities in our society. That justice for crimes committed against slums and suburbs in this country be done “and that slum dwellers in this country never forget that we are power and never allow them to harm our existence”. “You never have your rights, until everyone has their rights,” is Douglas's final message, a phrase from Marsha P. Johnson, trans activist from New York, in the 60s. An important reminder this week that marks the LGBTQIA+ Pride.
