Pistoia, migration and the human condition of refugees in Sebastião Salgado's shots

Pistoia is hosting, from February 8 to June 14, 2020, the exhibition Exodus. On the Roads of Migration, the photography exhibition by Sebastião Salgado (Aimorés, 1944) set up at Palazzo Buontalenti.

The exhibition is curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado, who asks the question, “In our journey into the future, are we not leaving behind a large part of humankind?” There is probably no answer to this question, but one can still admire the photos Salgado has taken to tell the story of migration and show us the tragedies and dramas that refugees face.

As the photographer wrote in 1999, “Today more than ever, I feel that humankind is one. There are differences in color, language, culture and opportunity, but the feelings and reactions of all people are similar. We hold the key to humanity’s future, but we must understand the present. These photographs show a portion of our present. We cannot afford to look the other way.”

The curator of the exhibition states, "Almost a generation has passed since these photographs were first exhibited. Yet in many ways the world they portray has changed little, as poverty, natural disasters, violence and war still force millions of people from their homes each year. In some cases, they end up in refugee camps that soon expand into small towns; in others, they are ready to invest all their savings, and even their lives, to pursue the dream of a mythical Promised Land. Today’s migrants and refugees are undoubtedly the product of new crises, but the despair and glimmers of hope we see on their faces are not all that different from those documented in these images. Almost everything that happens on Earth is connected in some way. We are all affected by the growing gap between rich and poor, population growth, mechanization of agriculture, destruction of the environment, and fanaticism exploited for political purposes. People torn from their homes are only the most visible victims of a global process."

For all information you can visit the official website of the Pistoia Musei Foundation.

Pictured: Sebastião Salgado, The beach of Vung Tau, formerly named Cap Saint Jacques, from where the majority of boat people left. Southern Vietnam. 1995

Pistoia, migration and the human condition of refugees in Sebastião Salgado's shots

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