Sebastião Salgado's masterpiece Genesis is the result of an epic eight-year
expedition to rediscover the mountains, deserts, and oceans, the animals and
peoples that have so far escaped the imprint of modern society-the land and life of a still pristine planet.
The Genesis project, along with the Salgados' Instituto Terra, is dedicated to
showing the beauty of our planet, reversing the damage done to it, and
preserving it for the future.
On over 30 trips-by foot, light aircraft, boats, canoes, and even balloons,
through extreme temperatures and in sometimes dangerous conditions-Salgado has
created a collection of images showing
us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in such intense beauty it takes our
breath away. The reach is truly global. Through Salgado's lens,
one discovers the animal species and volcanoes of the Galápagos; the penguins,
sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators
and jaguars; and African lions, leopards, and elephants. We travel over
icebergs in the Antarctic, the volcanoes of Central Africa, the ravines of the
Grand Canyon, and the glaciers of Alaska. We encounter the Stone Age Korowai
people of West Papua, nomadic Dinka cattle farmers in Sudan, Nenets and their
reindeer herds in the Arctic Circle, as well as the Mentawai jungle communities
on islands west of Sumatra.
In characteristic monochrome,
Salgado's painterly notes are perfectly tuned to these sublime scenes,
capturing sweeping aerial panoramas as much as the most intricate details and
textures, from a reptilian skin to the fur coat of the Nenet people of northern
Siberia. The exquisitely reproduced images are arranged not by theme but rather
conceived as a journey around the globe, immersing them in Salgado's vision of the Earth's mesmerizing
scale, order, and beauty.INSTITUTO TERRAFounded in 1998 at Aimorés in the state of Minas Gerais, Instituto Terra is the culmination of Lélia Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado's lifelong activism and work as cultural documentarians. Through a scientific program of planting and raising saplings, the organization has performed a miraculous reforestation of the once infertile region and furthered the Salgados' mission of reversing the damage done to our planet. TASCHEN is proud to reach carbon zero status through our continued partnership.
Author Biography:
Lélia Wanick Salgado studied architecture and urban planning in Paris. Her interest in photography started in 1970. In the 1980s, she began to conceive and design the majority of Sebastião Salgado’s photography books and all of the exhibitions of his work.
Sebastião Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in Paris in 1973 and subsequently worked with the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum Photos. In 1994, he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado created Amazonas Images, which is today their studio, and exclusively handles his work. Salgado’s photographic projects have been featured in many exhibitions as well as books, including Sahel. L’Homme en détresse (1986), Other Americas (1986), Terra (1997), Migrations (2000), The Children (2000), Africa (2007), Genesis (2013), The Scent of a Dream (2015), Kuwait. A Desert on Fire (2016), Gold (2019) and Amazônia (2021).
