A historical analysis of the representations of Mexico in the photographs of Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1930)

• Grant number: 16/07199-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2016
• End date: October 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of America
• Principal Investigator: Mariana Martins Villaça
• Grantee: Virgínia dos Santos Calado
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In this research project we have as main objective to identify and analyze how Mexico and mexicans are represented in photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, during the 1930s. Our sources are the photographs produced during this period, gathered and published recently in the catalog Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Fotopoesia. Between the decades 1920 and 1930, in Mexico, apply cultural policy actions with state support, whose purpose is to encourage works and projects that contribute to the construction of a national identity based on the celebration of miscegenation and the design of a national story character evolutionary, glorifying the Mexican Revolution. We intend to understand whether Álvarez Bravo's photographs dialogue with these actions and artistic expressions. We will analyze the photographs as historical documents and, therefore, seek to understand the subjects represented, the vision of national history that the photographer prints in his works, as well as the esthetic elements that constitute them, which are fundamental for understanding the meanings they acquire. We will also investigate the profile of this artist, mapping their training, their influences, their esthetic and political options, their inclusion in the cultural circuit of the time and its relationship with the state. (AU)