Vwegba Blogging World

1986. Serra Pelada gold mine, Brazil. Photography by Sebastião Salgado. He’s quoted as saying when he saw the mine, “Every hair on my body stood on edge. The Pyramids, the history of mankind unfolded. I had traveled to the dawn of time”. Describing the mine in a 1992 interview he said, “Swept along by the winds that carry the hint of fortune, men come to the gold mine of Serra Pelada. Read more  No one is taken there by force, yet once they arrive, all become slaves of the dream of gold and the need to stay alive. Once inside, it becomes impossible to leave. Every time a section finds gold, the men who carry up loads of mud and earth have, by law, the right to pick one of the sacks they brought out. And inside they may find fortune and freedom. So their lives are a delirious sequence of climbs down into the vast hold and climb out to the edge of the mine, bearing a sack of earth and the hope of gold. Anyone arriving there for the first time confirms an extraordinary and tormented view