Mato Grosso is the first book by photographer Raquel Bravo. It is a post-memory work that arises after the encounter with the photographic archive of her father and the discovery of his missionary activity in Brazil.
It is the winning project of the IV edition of Fotolibro <40, an initiative of the Community of Madrid coordinated by Jesús Micó.
Mato Grosso is an exercise in post-memory which stems from unearthing my father’s photographic archive after his death, and discovering his missionary work in Brazil before I was born. From the discrepancies between the images and his own account of the story, a negotiation of meaning begins, where my family’s foundational fantasies and their representation in our family album come into play, along with the operating power structures present in colonialism, capitalism, and the Catholic missions.
Book Specs: Mato Grosso by Raquel Bravo published by Fuego Books / Comunidad de Madrid 2021| Design: Tres Tipos Gráficos | Size: 23×28 cm | Pages: 128 | Binding: Hardcover | Print run: 1000 | Printed by: Brizzolis | Spanish / English. Available here.
################
Raquel Bravo is a photographer and educator based in Madrid. Her main concern in her photographic work revolves around memory as an opportunity for collective negotiation in the construction of meaning. To this end, she uses archives as a problematic anchor point from which to review the present.
She has been exhibited in Spain, India, Uruguay, Latvia, Italy, Georgia and South Korea.
