© Jorge Miguel, Untitled, from the series Mó, 2010
© Jorge Miguel, Untitled, from the series Mó, 2010
© Jorge Miguel, Untitled, from the series Mó, 2010
© Jorge Miguel, Untitled, from the series Mó, 2010
“Mó is a village in the central region of Portugal with only 13 inhabitants, in one of the most desertified areas of the country. These few remaining habitants are now a last glimpse of traditions and habits of rural life in harmony with nature. The youngest went to the big cities in search of better living conditions, leaving their old villages to die slowly. The average population age here is around seventy years old, so it is expected that within fifteen or twenty years many of these places will be left for oblivion.”
Jorge’s statement
Jorge Miguel’s photos are driven by an edgy approach to light (maybe life itself?) and grounded on a documentary style that relies on careful compositions. Whether shooting landscapes, animals or people, he tends to frame reality in a very crude way. Objects, in particular, tend to give away some tension as if they wanted to break away from the picture.
The nostalgia for the rural life, the obsession with the human condition in its anthropological context, the tendency to animate objects do not only describe his work as well as that of many other Portuguese authors. These similarities denote the esteem we have for our culture and an urge to document and thus immortalize these chunks of our life; on the other hand, these contained, dark and direct approaches can also stand for the fear we have of losing the symbols that identify us.
by Sofia Silva
More of Jorge’s work here
N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 