O que dizer sobre Ipatinga para além do que já se sabe? Este é um dos propósitos do ensaio fotográfico ora apresentado, que fez, aos meus olhos, uma escolha acertada quando decidiu enveredar pelos fragmentos quase invisíveis da realidade cotidiana dessa cidade.
A possibilidade que vejo neste prólogo é de um recorte extremamente pessoal, dadas as deixas lançadas pelas presentes fotografias e considerando seu enfoque pelo viés do cotidiano, do casual, do ordinário, do trivial, ao invés do já estabelecido ou do estereotipado.
A cidade escolhida é excelente para tal abordagem, uma vez que já nos acostumamos com um tipo de olhar mais ou menos viciado sobre a sua realidade, muitas vezes embalado pelo modo como a sua história se deu. O mito da retidão, das certezas, da regularidade e da repetição monotone é substituído pela casualidade, pela incerteza e até mesmo pela insegurança.
Repetição e regularidade pertencem tanto ao olhar estereotipado quanto a esse novo olhar pautado no cotidiano, o que diferencia é o peso ou a leveza com que são encarados nos dois âmbitos. Nesse caso, ficamos com a segunda opção, pois em tal contexto a regularidade torna-se dócil e impregna as imagens com uma boa sensação de familiaridade.
Ipatinga sempre despertou em mim um misto de fascínio e estranhamento, que é bem aquela sensação que uma terra estrangeira costuma causar na gente. Apesar de ter nascido e vivido muitos anos em Coronel Fabriciano, a cidade de periférica centralidade, poderia dizer que Ipatinga passou na minha vida como uma incógnita. A experiência de circular pela cidade de longas distâncias interbairros quase nunca a pé, nunca de moto, quase nunca de carro, sempre de ônibus, raramente por sobrevôo, talvez tenha impregnado em mim esse sentimento de distância.
O termo alemão unheimlich [sinistro, estranho] refere-se a esse sentimento, ao passo que heimisch trata do oposto [familiar, caseiro, de casa, nativo, local], mas ambos possuem o mesmo radical heim [lar, casa]. Há um paralelo entre tais expressões e o efeito que essas fotografias me causam: a familiaridade misturada com o olhar do estrangeiro, que agora é como eu me sinto depois de anos distante do Vale do Aço. Curiosamente é também quando eu me tornei mais próxima.
Estas fotos me tocam de várias maneiras. Falam tanto de um cotidiano que eu não vivi, como de um universo que me é bastante familiar, ou mesmo com o qual eu sonhei, e de um mundo que contribui para que eu entenda muitas coisas da cidade, de mim, pessoas, da vida.
O que mais se pode esperar do cotidiano?
Nestas fotos eu reconheço muitas Ipatingas. Há Japão, Estados Unidos, Paraguai, a Ipatinga oficial, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, Hollywood, Amazonas, Berlim, Ilha Grande, uma roça bem típica do interior de Minas e até um quadro de Edward Hopper misturado com a zona rote de Amsterdã, ou alguns fragmentos de cidades que retive ao longo de uma vida de cinéfila, tudo isso numa cidade só. Cidades quaisquer com suas periferias e raros verdes (quem diria?), cidades aquaplay de beira de estrada, cidades genéricas e particulares. Caberiam quantas cidades eu quisesse, pois é o meu olhar que se funda aqui.
Estas fotos atestam com muita delicadeza aquilo que o senso comum reitera sobre a multipliCIDADE... “Minas são muitas”, já dizia o comercial de turismo... mas Ipatinga, na sua conhecida ânsia de regularidade, de repetição, de extraordinariedade pra sua época de origem, também o é.
Estas imagens minuciosamente olhadas e revisitadas evocam em mim sentimentos controversos: sensações de pertencimento e distância, de familiaridade e estranhamento, o que traz à tona perguntas do tipo: “Como não percebi isso antes?”, ou ainda, “Isso é mesmo Ipatinga?”. “Quão amarela é essa cidade e só agora eu percebo!!!”. O nosso olhar atento mediado por outros mais atentos ainda são capazes de (re)criar uma cidade inteira.
É assim que eu vejo este ensaio fotográfico: um delicioso convite para desfrutar o que Ipatinga nos oferece de melhor, as pessoas e seus ritmos lentos e cotidianos. Uma experiência do corriqueiro em suspensão. Ações interrompidas em átimos de reflexão. Foi surpreendentemente agradável fruir as imagens desses fragmentos de vida, onde a aparente dureza subentendida na lógica estrutural da cidade deslocou-se de seu espaço cativo.
Estas fotos e todas as histórias que pude imaginar nelas contidas me emocionam muito, de verdade! Reconheço boa parte desses gestos, hábitos e elementos espaciais. Ao mesmo tempo, as imagens captadas me causam uma nostalgia de algo que ainda estou por conhecer. Reitero, assim, o convite dos artistas!
Isa Tibúrcio
arquiteta e professora de arquitetura e urbanismo
What can be said about Ipatinga beyond what is already known? This is one of the purposes from the book presented here, which did, in my point of view, a wise choice when the authors decided to head for the invisible fragments of everyday reality of that city.
The opportunity I see in this prologue is an extremely personal cut through the clues released by these registers, considering the everyday life approach, the casual, the ordinary, the trivial rather than the one already established or stereotyped.
The city chosen is excellent for such an approach, since we’re used to a kind of look more or less addicted to its reality, often packed by how its story took place. The myth of righteousness, of certainty, regularity and repetition monotone is replaced by casualty, uncertainly and even insecurity.
Repetition and regularity belong both to a stereotyped look and this can occur also when the register is guided by this everyday look. The difference is the weight or lightness in which they are seen in scopes. In this case, we have the second choice, because in such a context the regularity becomes docile and imbues the images with a good sense of familiarity.
Ipatinga always aroused in me a mixture of fascination and strangeness, which is quite the sensation that a foreign land causes in us. Although I was born and have lived many years in Coronel Fabriciano a small city near to it. I could say that Ipatinga passed in my life as an unknown. My around the city experience was never on foot, nor by bike, nor driven, rarely by airplane, but always by bus, and this could have ingrained in me this distance feeling.
The German term unheimlich [sinister, strange] refers to this feeling, while the opposite is heimisch [familiarity, home, native, local], but both have the same radical heim [home, house]. There is a parallel between such expressions and the effect that these photographs caused on me: an alien familiarity look, a feeling that a feel after years away from the Vale do Aço Region. However, it is interesting because now is also the time that I became closer to it.
These pictures touched me in many ways. They express a routine that I did not live but they are about a universe that is quite familiar to me, or even with which I dreamed of, they register a world that helps me understand many things about this city, its people, its life and about me.
The opportunity I see in this prologue is an extremely personal cut through the clues released by these registers, considering the everyday life approach, the casual, the ordinary, the trivial rather than the one already established or stereotyped.
The city chosen is excellent for such an approach, since we’re used to a kind of look more or less addicted to its reality, often packed by how its story took place. The myth of righteousness, of certainty, regularity and repetition monotone is replaced by casualty, uncertainly and even insecurity.
Repetition and regularity belong both to a stereotyped look and this can occur also when the register is guided by this everyday look. The difference is the weight or lightness in which they are seen in scopes. In this case, we have the second choice, because in such a context the regularity becomes docile and imbues the images with a good sense of familiarity.
Ipatinga always aroused in me a mixture of fascination and strangeness, which is quite the sensation that a foreign land causes in us. Although I was born and have lived many years in Coronel Fabriciano a small city near to it. I could say that Ipatinga passed in my life as an unknown. My around the city experience was never on foot, nor by bike, nor driven, rarely by airplane, but always by bus, and this could have ingrained in me this distance feeling.
The German term unheimlich [sinister, strange] refers to this feeling, while the opposite is heimisch [familiarity, home, native, local], but both have the same radical heim [home, house]. There is a parallel between such expressions and the effect that these photographs caused on me: an alien familiarity look, a feeling that a feel after years away from the Vale do Aço Region. However, it is interesting because now is also the time that I became closer to it.
These pictures touched me in many ways. They express a routine that I did not live but they are about a universe that is quite familiar to me, or even with which I dreamed of, they register a world that helps me understand many things about this city, its people, its life and about me.
And what else can you expect from everyday?
In these photos, I recognize many “Ipatingas”. There is Japan, United States, Paraguay, the official one, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, Hollywood, Amazonas, Berlin, Ilha Grande, a quite typical farm in Minas Gerais and even a picture of Edward Hopper mixed with the Amsterdam rote area, or fragments of all the cities that I have retained over my cinephile life, all of them in a single city. Any city with their peripheries and rare greens (who do you tell?), roadside aquaplay cities, generic and individuals cities. I could fit many cities I wanted, because it’s my look in which I´m based here.
These photos certify with great delicacy what common sense insists on multiplyCITIES ... “Mines are many” that has been told in a commercial sentence... and Ipatinga, with its regularity eagerness, its repetition and its extraordinariness origin, is also a city of many.
I looked through these images over and over again and they evoked on me controversial feelings: from the sense of belonging to the opposite distance, familiarity and strangeness. These feelings brought up questions like “How did I not realize this before?” or, “Is that really Ipatinga?” “How yellow is this town and only now I realize it!” My eyes are still able to (re)create an entire city.
That is how I see these registers, a delicious invitation to enjoy what Ipatinga offers us better: its people and their slow rhythms, its everyday. An experience of ordinary matter. Interrupted actions to instants of reflection. It was surprisingly pleasant to look through these fragments of life´s registers.
These pictures and all I could think of stories contained therein thrill me a lot, and that is true! I recognize most of these gestures, habits and spatial elements. At the same time, the images captured bring on me nostalgia for something that I yet have to meet. I reiterate, therefore, the artists´ invitation!
In these photos, I recognize many “Ipatingas”. There is Japan, United States, Paraguay, the official one, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, Hollywood, Amazonas, Berlin, Ilha Grande, a quite typical farm in Minas Gerais and even a picture of Edward Hopper mixed with the Amsterdam rote area, or fragments of all the cities that I have retained over my cinephile life, all of them in a single city. Any city with their peripheries and rare greens (who do you tell?), roadside aquaplay cities, generic and individuals cities. I could fit many cities I wanted, because it’s my look in which I´m based here.
These photos certify with great delicacy what common sense insists on multiplyCITIES ... “Mines are many” that has been told in a commercial sentence... and Ipatinga, with its regularity eagerness, its repetition and its extraordinariness origin, is also a city of many.
I looked through these images over and over again and they evoked on me controversial feelings: from the sense of belonging to the opposite distance, familiarity and strangeness. These feelings brought up questions like “How did I not realize this before?” or, “Is that really Ipatinga?” “How yellow is this town and only now I realize it!” My eyes are still able to (re)create an entire city.
That is how I see these registers, a delicious invitation to enjoy what Ipatinga offers us better: its people and their slow rhythms, its everyday. An experience of ordinary matter. Interrupted actions to instants of reflection. It was surprisingly pleasant to look through these fragments of life´s registers.
These pictures and all I could think of stories contained therein thrill me a lot, and that is true! I recognize most of these gestures, habits and spatial elements. At the same time, the images captured bring on me nostalgia for something that I yet have to meet. I reiterate, therefore, the artists´ invitation!
Isa Tibúrcio
Architect and architect and urbanism professor
Architect and architect and urbanism professor
