Sebastião Salgado – probably the most acclaimed and revered living photographer – exhibits in Forlì, Italy, his most ambitious and demanding project. At Musei San Domenico, Genesis portrays a state of nature, the conditions of what the lives of people might have been like before society came into existence.

Salgado’s Genesis in the magnificent setting of San Giacomo Church in Forlì. Nikon D750, 24 mm (24 mm ƒ/1.4) 1/5 sec ƒ/8 ISO 800

After a short excursion in the field of his PhD studies in Economics, Salgado took up photography, an art that he pursued with the utmost diligence, documenting the fiercest humane sufferings, namely forced migration, famine, slavery and genocide. When he had enough of violence and blood, back to Brazil, he managed to replant the rainforest in the estate that he inherited from his family and he turned it into an environmental education center, called Institutio Terra.

Today, while he is promoting the show, Salgado is engaged in spreading his personal experience to the four corners of the planet. The intent is to arouse a change in perspective aimed at reconsidering the importance of the immense forest heritage that got lost in the world in the name of progress.

The show present a selection of 245 photographs. The book by Taschen accompanying it displays its content on 520 glossy pages arranged in five chapters geographically: Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern Spaces, Amazonia and Pantanal.

Curated by Léila Wanick Salgado, wife and business partner of the photographer, the Forlì exhibit is sheltered in the newly renovated church of San Giacomo Apostolo, a scenery both magnificent and solemn to add fascination to the emblematic and beautiful imagery.