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Sebastião Salgado — The first day of installation of the camp of Benako for the Rwandan Tutsi and Hutu refugees, Tanzania
Sebastião Salgado

The first day of installation of the camp of Benako for the Rwandan Tutsi and Hutu refugees, Tanzania

A vast sea of humanity stretches across the Tanzanian landscape as thousands of Rwandan refugees establish the Benako camp, their makeshift shelters and gathered belongings forming an overwhelming testament to mass displacement. Salgado's masterful use of gelatin silver print renders the scene in stark, luminous black and white, transforming an overwhelming human tragedy into a composition of both documentary power and haunting visual poetry. The sweeping scale of the image captures the simultaneous chaos and resilience of survival, as individuals and families carve out small spaces of existence within an almost incomprehensible collective crisis.

Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed later.

🔨 Auction Lot

Photographs

October 3, 2017

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About this work

Sebastião Salgado, The first day of installation of the camp of Benako for the Rwandan Tutsi and Hutu refugees, Tanzania

A vast sea of humanity stretches across the Tanzanian landscape as thousands of Rwandan refugees establish the Benako camp, their makeshift shelters and gathered belongings forming an overwhelming testament to mass displacement. Salgado's masterful use of gelatin silver print renders the scene in stark, luminous black and white, transforming an overwhelming human tragedy into a composition of both documentary power and haunting visual poetry. The sweeping scale of the image captures the simultaneous chaos and resilience of survival, as individuals and families carve out small spaces of existence within an almost incomprehensible collective crisis.

Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed later.
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

20th Century, Brazilian Photographer, Male Artist, Documentary Photography, 20th Century Photography, Black and White Photography, Gelatin Silver Print, Social Commentary, World Renowned Artist, Humanitarian Subject, Master Photographer, Somber Mood, Photojournalism, Refugee Crisis, Social Realism

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