Self-Confidence

I kept the image above for long enough that it settled into an ambiguous place in my archive. I had a sincere affection for it, although it never carried the same weight I attributed to some of my other work.

About a month ago, during an open-call period, I submitted 14 photographs to a gallery in Germany. It is an unquestionably significant institution, whose exhibition history includes Gordon Parks, McCurry, and Sebastião Salgado, as well as a project co-curated by Cindy Crawford. I submitted the work convinced that they would never get in touch with me, some random Thiago. And so I completely forgot about the submission, which I do quite often… I confess.

Since the day before yesterday, my phone had been registering calls from Charlottenburg, Berlin. I assumed they were scam calls and hung up several times. Today, while listening to music and editing, I accidentally touched the screen and answered. We spoke, Bahian English meeting German, and apparently I’m less rusty than I thought. I remained suspicious until I realized that I was the one who had submitted the images in the first place.

Nothing concrete has happened yet. The gallery representatives expressed interest not in this photograph alone, but asked me to develop a cohesive series of between 8 and 15 works, organized as a sequence around the theme and edited as an essay, so they can reconsider the work sometime in the near future. Bahia is having a moment!

I felt frightened and had no intention of writing about what happened, much less publishing the image. I am rigorously critical of what I produce and constantly strive to do better. I have to acknowledge that I cannot examine my own work with the same generosity I bring to the work of others.

I do not intend to turn this contact into confirmation of the work, nor to diminish the significance of what happened.

I want to understand what this reveals about the way I look at what I make.

I have photographs with which to build the possible series, and I intend to examine everything calmly. I also hope to reach some degree of belonging to these images.

The final premise is the need to treat myself with greater kindness, without giving up the critical rigor that is inseparable from my process. But going to Germany wouldn’t be so bad.