Output details

No Ola Da Rua: The Beautiful Horizon - Photographic works made with the street children of Brazil

Informed by Germain’s long-standing research into the treatment of street children of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, this project has brought together a wealth of material as a collection, documenting the lives of some of the most marginalised people in the world.

Working in collaboration with Patricia Azevedo and Murilo Godoy and the street children, the project offered participants the chance to express themselves through photography, writing and interviews. The work explores the relationship between photographer and participant and has shaped a new model of participatory working, allowing the children to control how they are seen and understanding the function of the project and its intended impact in terms of social change.

‘The aim was to create art exhibitions, publications and ‘actions’ that serve as testaments of their ability as image makers and proof, which unfortunately is needed, that these people are capable of expressing strong, intelligent feelings and deep human emotions; a permanent documentary record of the lives of the individual participants which are relevant to us all as an example of courage and resistance, deprivation and inequality, not only in developing societies, but increasingly, in the first world as well; a conduit for discussion, debate, knowledge, understanding and action, now and into the future.’ Julian Germain, website.

The Beautiful Horizon exhibition, made of up photographic works by approximately 75 young people, Julian Germain, Patricia Azevedo and Murilo Godoy was shown at

Fabrica Gallery, Brighton (6 October - 25 November 2012) during Brighton Photo Bienniale 2012. It features flyposters, newspapers, video portraits, flyers, exhibition prints and, most importantly, the first phase of the new project archive in the form of more than 125 boxed sets of enprints, enabling gallery visitors to explore the narratives in entire rolls of film.