The black of night filled the infinite space of the lagoon and the dense tropical forest that surrounded it. Actually, it was an almost pitch-black, as the starry sky was duplicated onto the dark water mirror of New Lagoon, mixing the brightness of the stars above with that of the scales of the fish below. The silence was also an almost silence, since it shared its space with the sound of animals that slept and those that did not. The humic smell and white mist evaporated from the water and expanded into the almost pitch-black. Along with the night, the boat flowed into the smell and mist. We stopped there on the water waiting for the transcendental moment that was about to happen. We stayed there, still, breathing in communion with those who slept and those who didn't. At a certain moment, we saw the silhouette of a mountain take form in the infinity. And then another. And the alchemy of the sun transmuted the almost pitch black into blue and then into red. The mist absorbed the celestial blush for itself and spread it throughout New Lagoon. The evaporating water and its floating lilies found themselves turned to a mysterious, ethereal crimson. All of this happened in a tiny fraction of time and in near silence. There was no applause. As the boat returned to the base, we, who had just witnessed the sublime, thought to ourselves:
– “This spectacle happens every day at dawn at the New Lagoon.”
– “And hardly anyone sees it…”

When the field work was finished and the rolls of film had been developed, I would move onto the next step, which was to burn the films – the films that I myself had photographed. Despite having already planned this step well (which included experimenting with fire in different ways on test films and visually mapping the specific burning process that I would perform on each of the frames), I kept putting off the actual moment of burning, like someone who postpones a crime that she will commit. I was trying to postpone the pain. The pain of aggression, the pain of irreversibility. The pain of the impossibility of revisiting that landscape in that unique vision of its existence. The pain of violating such places of beauty and teachings. The pain of destroying something that is so cared for by the analogue photographer: the original. After the burning, there would remain something mutilated and in a way that I still couldn't even know, since fire is a powerful weapon, a weapon that one can't completely control. Furthermore, all the effort to find and get to that exact spot, obtain the desired light and the proper camera position, would be consumed by the crackling of the flame once in contact with the photographic chemical and celluloid. And so I kept putting off the act, day after day. Would I be criticized for burning original pieces? I remembered the fire at the National Film Archive and at the National Museum, the Pantanal region, the Brazilian savanna and the Amazon fires, the villages burnt during the countless wars of our history, the books burned by the Nazi regime, I remembered all these acts that, having taken place in the past and myself living in the present, had denied me the possibility of understanding valuable things that are part of my own history. I remembered that this work of mine proposed to emulate these violent acts, using the same element to this end, and thus symbolically remembering them, since violations that are not remembered by society tend not to be fought and, consequently, to be repeated in the future. In the end, the crime I proposed for me to commit took place: holding my breath I lit the match and brought the photogram closer to the flame. The landscape burned and deformed. I remembered all those fires. Once again, I was outraged. I felt the pain.

On August 27, in 2019, I read on BBC News Brazil: [quote] “August 10th can be classified as a key moment in recent Amazon history. It is now known as the 'Day of Fire', when rural producers in the northern region of Brazil are said to have started an organised movement to set fire to areas of the largest tropical forest in the world. This suspicion is being investigated by the Federal Police and the Federal Prosecutors’ Office. This Monday, the General Attorney of the Republic said there were indications of an 'orchestrated action' to set fire to several forest areas. […] The first news about this was published on August 5 by the Folha do Progresso newspaper, in the city of Novo Progresso, state of Pará. The article reported a conversation with a leading producer of the town who promised to promote forest fires on the 10th. The text read, '(The Producers) want the 10th of August to get the attention of the authorities. (...) The development of local production is taking place without government support. We need to show the president that we want to work, and the only way is by taking the forest down. To shape and clear our pastures we need fire'. Satellite data collected by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research and compiled by the Pará State Secretariat for the Environment show that, as of August 10th, there was a significant increase of fires in forest areas. This increase occurred mainly in forest reserves in the municipalities of Novo Progresso, Altamira and São Félix do Xingu. On the 10th, Novo Progresso presented 124 active fire records, a 300% increase from the previous day. Altamira recorded 154 fires between the 6th and 8th of August. In the next three days, from August 9 to 11, 431 fires were detected in the city, a 179% increase in three days. São Félix do Xingu presented a more significant increase: between the 6th and 8th of August, the municipality registered 67 outbreaks. In the next three days, 288 were observed, a 329% increase in three days.” [end quote]
A few days after the “Day of Fire”, the black smoke arrived in São Paulo, over 1200 miles away from where the fire had taken place, and day became night in the largest city of the Americas.

During the burning of the photographic film I noticed that my fingerprint remained on the molten emulsion, merging the identity of the perpetrator with it. That reminded me of Nina Berman during a deep conversation the two of us had last year about visual narratives that chronicle themes of violence, injustice and violations of Human and Nature Rights. She said: "one must show the perpetrator and not only their victims."

In 2020, the Pantanal, one of the planet's megadiversity regions and the world's largest floodplain, experienced an unprecedented fire season, where a third of its area was turned into ash and at least 17 million animals burned to death. In a geographical and temporal dimension, it was as if more than half of Switzerland had been burnt in just nine months. That year, more than 90% of fires were started by human action and the extremely dry air, strong wind, logistical difficulties, negligence and the consequent lack of equipment, water and personnel created hell, where a few firefighters, veterinarians and biologists made superhuman efforts and countless animals found themselves trapped, many succumbing to the flames. What happened in the Pantanal in those months was worthy of an apocalyptic chronicle: the flames jumped from one place to another, seeming to come out of nowhere, as the peat in the soil allowed much of the fire to go underground. Consequently, that fire was invisible to the eyes but felt on every paw and foot fleeing from the large flames that spread in an unpredictable direction. Animals and rescue teams were witnesses to, and victims of, an ecocide. In the photographs and videos produced on site, the fire line and smoke were so extensive that it seemed impossible to extinguish them; animals were dying or were reached too late, already charred. Those were difficult images to look at without being terrified. Despite the horror that was reported daily in all national and international media and the analyses that pointed out the causes, and their prevention, the scenario in the Pantanal region managed to repeat itself in an even more cruel fashion in the following year of 2021.
Through my research I found an article published on the 4th of September, 2020 on Mato Grosso Government's website: [quote] "Expert reports by the Integrated Multi-agency Center for Operational Coordination indicate that fires recorded in the Pantanal region of the State of Mato Grosso were caused by human action. The reports were forwarded to the Environment Police Department so that an investigation can be opened, and the offenders held accountable. […] At the Sesc Pantanal Private Natural Heritage Reserve, in the Barão de Melgaço region, the cause of the fire was given as the intentional burning of deforested vegetation to create a cattle pasture area on a local farm, which encroached on the nature reserve. Using aircraft from the Brazilian Air Force the team scanned the area and found the use of wood, fence posts, wires and ropes. Nearby, the team also found diesel fuel canisters that appeared to have been used to ignite piles of overturned plant material. […]” [end quote]

“It was a Sunday. The 2nd of September, 2018. From between 7:30 pm and into the early hours of Monday, the 3rd, Brazil watched a part of its own history become lost to fire. Most of the 20 million items that the National Museum housed were completely destroyed. Amongst them, the oldest human fossil found in the country, Luzia, as well as the Egyptian collection acquired by Dom Pedro I, the collection of Greco-Roman art, artifacts of Empress Teresa Cristina and palaeontology collections that included the fossil of a dinosaur from the state of Minas Gerais. […] Researchers, historians, and Museum employees raced to the site to help contain the flames. […] When the fire was eventually put out, around 3 am of Monday morning, the museum staff mourned the destruction of 90% of the collection.”
The Correio Brasiliense newspaper, September 2, 2021. Title of the article: “Fire at the National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro, turns three years old: remember”

It was a Sunday. I casually passed through the living room of my house, where the nightly news was being watched, when I was suddenly taken aback by the image of high flames seen from a helicopter and the journalist saying “the fire at the National Museum”. Astonished, I stopped and watched ('was this really happening?!'). I had visited the museum at the end of the year, and I could remember my fascination with the collection and how it had been exquisitely exhibited to allow us to know our history: as a planet, as a species, as a civilization, as a being. The roar of flames merged with the ominous hum of the helicopters announced the destruction of our biological, social and cultural heritage that was taking place overnight. On TV, the images of overwhelming flames that broke out through the windows and ceiling of each room of the mansion were broadcast live. In my mind's eye, I saw Luzia, the giant sloth, the tyrannosaurus: everything on fire, until it was reduced to a fine powder that would then be annihilated once and for all by the wind. When the fire was eventually put out, around 3 am of Monday morning, my memories became silenced.

“A fire broke out in a shed at the Brazil’s National Film Archive in São Paulo. […] One million documents from Embrafilme, the now defunct National Film Company, including screenplays, paper archives, original film prints and old equipment, were kept in this building. Some were over 100 years old and were destined for a Museum about the history of the Brazilian film industry. […] Earlier this year in April, National Film Archive's workers had warned of the institution’s state of abandonment and demanded clarification from the National Film Institute regarding the emergency plan announced by Secretary of Culture Mário Frias in December 2020. Carlos Magalhães a former director of the National Film Archive, immediately visited the site of the fire and stated 'Such is the state of the memory of Brazil's Film Industry. Devastation. Total devastation. Heart-wrenching...’[…]”
Evening News, Rede Globo channel, July 29, 2021. Title of the article: “Fire hits one of the National Film Archive's sheds in São Paulo”

“The indigenous Guarani Kaiowá people's prayer house was criminally burnt down this Saturday, October 2, in the community of Tekoha Guapo'y, located in the municipality of Amambai, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Elizeu Guarani, the executive coordinator of the Brazilian Indigenous People's Council and of the General Assembly of the Kaiowá and Guarani people, declares: ‘We are sad because it is our sacred temple. With much sacrifice we built it and now in the blink of an eye it has been burnt down.”
Brazilian Indigenous People's Council, October 3, 2021, on a social network.

“People, listen, I am back here to ask for help. Outlaws are wreaking havoc in the Municipality of Anapu [state of Pará], as are the operations of the powerful land grabbers of the Amazon. The community of sector 96 is exposed, as well as the other peasant farmer settlements. Despite the court order, the police are not protecting the community of sector 96, where last week two families were taken hostage and two houses were burned down. There are 25 children there, and they are terrified. One of these children, when she saw her father leaving their home this morning, said: 'Dad, don't go, because they will burn down our house!’. […]”
Eliane Brum, May 17, 2022, on a social network.