Christian Cravo

Trance, Sodo Waterfall, Haiti

Christian Cravo (b.1974, Brazil) was brought up in an artistic environment in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia. His photographs have been exhibited at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, the Throckmorton Fine Arts  Gallery, New York, Leica Gallery, and in group shows at SF Camera Works , the Witkin Gallery and the Houston Foto Fest. He has received awards from the Mother Jones Photo Fund for Documentary Photography, a scholarship from the Vitae Foundation and a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship for his research on the Brazilian northeast. His first book “Irredentos” was published in 2000 and in 2005 his second book “Roma noire, ville métisse” was published in Paris by Autrement.

About the Photograph:

“A woman supposedly in a trance at the Sodo waterfall in the central highlands where pilgrims gather in a yearly ceremony to honor African divinities and Gods. This image is part of a larger project called In the Gardens of Eden. As a photographer, I seek to understand people through the images that arise in the course of my journey. I make my eye an instrument that tells a story that is, above all human. In this regard, I see Haiti as the supreme expression of the human essence. This is a society with very unique characteristics – intensely spiritual, replete with symbolism, in which people show their lack of prudishness through the purest of elements.”