Heloisa Lodder

Title: Sculpture from a Vulnerable Society

About the Photo:

Sculptures from a Vulnerable Society it’s one of the fragments of the current political-socio-economical scenario in Brazil.

Particularly, the images were taken on Paulista Avenue and surroundings, where I live and walk daily – a wealthy neighborhood and one of the main financial districts of the city of Sao Paulo.

In these studies, I have focused on the pictures I have been taking of people who take shelter on the streets, totally wrapped in fragile materials to protect themselves, such as black plastics, blankets or paper boxes. We are not able to see their bodies and immediately recognize them as human beings, except when they rarely move.
This scenario draws attention to a very fragile human condition that is called *social vulnerability but is daily ignored and neglected by neighbors and public power.

When I cover these (original) photographs with digital painting, I intend to conceptually “discover” and reveal something opposite caused by their actual status. In this way, I seek through these sculptures to reveal perhaps the most valuable human essence these individuals have lost over time in society – representativeness and personal identity.
[ Identity is something that defines us, give us directions and value and takes years to form ]

* social vulnerability is the concept that identifies the condition of groups of individuals that are losing their representativeness in society. They are found in a marked decline of basic well-being and human rights.