Brazilian professional photographer born in 1984, based in Rio de Janeiro, graduated in Photography at Estácio de Sá University.  Marcelo Costa Braga photography digs the roots of Brazilian culture to bring up deep issues of race, traditions and ethnics that  document the ancestry of the largest country of Latin America. 

 

Among his rich and profound work, the outstanding Tekoha Guaiviry (2015), Aldeia Multiétnica (Multiethnic village - 2017) , Chapada dos Veadeiros (2018),  approach the battle of resistance of Indian tribes in Brazil to preserve their culture and re-access their sacred territories, usurped for centuries, since colonization. 

 

Vidas Negras Importam (Black Lives Matter - 2019), Retratos da Congada (Congada Portraits - 2016) and Eu sou o carnaval (I am the carnival - 2020) reflect about race, racism and how, due to 3 centuries of slavery and exchange between Africa and Brazil, the roots of black culture became the Brazilian culture itself, in popular parties as carnival,  the congado and the Yemanjá party.  

 

Internationally, the intervention ‘Tekoha Guaviry - the heart of land’ amplified Indian voices by spreading photographs around the heart of New York, ‘capital of capitalism’. The Guarani Kaiowá voices from Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, gained space in New York subway, on Time Square walls and other iconic places of the city.  Marcelo has also lived in California, where he developed copyright works with homeless people in Los Angeles.

 

Besides raising Indian voices, Marcelo uses his art to strength these communities. During the pandemic, he led a campaign that raised 84 essential item kits to  help the Guarani Kaiowá survival hard isolation they went through.