Hostilidades urbanas: uma interpretação fotográfica da cidade de Juiz de Fora - MG

Abstract

Many of the contemporary Brazilian cities have historically been shaped through profound socio-economic inequalities, which have been translated into spatial segregation: an urban fragmentation characterized by the division of the city into areas appropriated by the richest and others by the poorest. The feeling of fear, distrust, the valuation of individual protections over collective protection and the weakening of the public space are some of the consequences resulting from this scenario. As a consequence, the city's landscape sometimes becomes increasingly hostile, where a huge range of segregationist devices begins to stealthily act on its inhabitants. As a language that stimulates visual perception and acts as a bridge between the subject and the world, photography is a tool that is willing to be an important ally in the empirical investigation of urban phenomena. It is through it, therefore, that this work proposes to carry out investigative photoshoots about the urban hostilities in the city of Juiz de Fora, in Minas Gerais, with the aim of clarifying them and putting them in focus, thus moving in the opposite direction to their existence. In this first part, a theoretical foundation was carried out about its main thematic axes – hostile architecture and urbanism, urban photography and the city of Juiz de Fora – as well as studies of works by photographers who focused on the theme. In addition, an initial structure was presented at the end that will guide the fieldwork during the second part of the work, also discussing possible products resulting from the achieved photoshoots.