"A Gente Transforma" (literally "We Transform"), is a project idealized by Marcelo Rosenbaum, developed with the community and Rosenbaum's team: 47 people that included designers, students, volunteers, film-makers, journalists, spiritual leaders, architects, and me, as the photographer. During a few weeks, the work was developed in Várzea Queimada, a drought-plagued Piauí community of 900 people of mixed indigenous and black ancestry, at Piauí State, Brazil. To see images from the catalogue developed during this project, check out the images: CATALOGO TOCA: http://bit.ly/NCDDvL

Brazil holds the mark for largest producer of bleached eucalyptus cellulose. Industrial units distributed between the northern Espírito Santo and southern Bahia states explore the area and destroyed the landscape with large areas of monoculture. Cellulose companies there have been linked to several crimes, including money laundering, fraud, corruption, tax evasion, environmental and labor crimes. The region's companies also joined the army officers to evict traditional and indigenous communities residents who inhabited the region. Brazil exports millions tons of cellulose and paper every year. Mostly bleached cellulose is exported to Europe, China and North America. See the gallery large here: http://www.tatianacardeal.com/#!/portfolio/G00007tLm3uQkFYg/1

In the Brazilian northeast, a community that survives by gathering wild fruit is threatened with extinction. They are mostly black and native women who pick mangaba and for generations have lived by collecting this fruit that grows naturally on the Brazilian coast in the state of Sergipe. The gathering of mangaba is the basis of livelihood of more than 5 thousand people in situations of social vulnerability, and the construction of a bridge changed the economic profile of the region and real estate speculation and the devastation of green areas and ecosystems has put pressure on the gathers who struggle to maintain their strongest traditions. Each year these women pick 280 tons of mangaba and sustain an intense network of small businesses at fairs and markets. Nevertheless, these traditional communities are threatened by landowners who started to prohibit collection of the fruit, which could lead to hunger many families who depend on gathering mangaba to survive. In Sergipe, 90% of the mangaba is found in areas of native forest, where the traditional populations gather the fruit as a means of survival. The privatization of the spaces where there are mangabeiras and deforestation are decreasing the collection areas. An entire way of life in harmony with the environment could disappear with the devastation of the natural ecosystems, which are being replaced by subdivisions, industrial shrimp raising, sugar cane crops and a real state development (vacation homes, condos, hotels). The farms and lands where gathering had been permitted have been increasingly and rapidly fenced in. The attempt by the Mangaba pickers to organize their search for lands where they can continue to gather alerted the large land owners to agrarian reform. With fear of losing their lands, farms that until recently were nothing more than large open areas with lots of native mangabeira trees were fenced-in, and guards posted to keep the pickers away.

Projeto Saude e Alegria, the PSA (Health and Happiness Project) is a non profit civil institution working in Para State, where doctors, dentists, educators and actors go to the communities along the Tapajos and Arapiuns Rivers, using boats, visiting places without social public services, bringing health and social sustainable development. In 2006, I was invited to visit the PSA for a few days, with a group of businessmen who were researching about social responsibility in the Amazonia area. This series was born during this time, and result in fragments of some Tapajos communities' life shared with the PSA Project. Population living along these rivers are mostly indigenous descendants living in small villages, strongly connected with the forest, the rivers and the nature forces. Distances in Amazonia are large and the path are mostly rivers, health services are rare along the rivers, and the boat from PSA is always welcome and received with happiness. I shared some amazing experiences there, like the changing of humor from the children when PSA clowns and doctors started working: "health for the body, happiness for the soul" as they use to say; living without electric energy for a while; being pushed to other fields of communication by people with Down syndrome; the Piracaia party, which is a night happening where a fish barbecue is made at the river's beach, on the sand, joining all the native community together, to share food, stories and a painted sky with stars beside the fire... (personally, these reinforced my own convictions of how simple and pleasant life can be with a small group of basic things beside a strong and powerful nature).

Commissioned work for AVINA Foundation (Fundación AVINA) about the Catadores - Pickers of garbage selecting recyclable materials, working in two Sao Paulo city projects supported by Avina Foundation.

A Diary of Exclusion: Considered the largest vertical occupation in Latin America, the building was an old textile factory abandoned, and the owners owed millions in taxes to the municipal government. Some 2.000 people were living there, members of the Downtown Homeless Movement, which was led by 10 women from various occupied sites in the city. They were well organized, formed by thousands of people who formerly lived on the street, in squares or under bridges and overpasses. Like an army without shelter, they founded the Homeless Movement not only as a way to struggle for the right to housing, but to restore their own dignity, unraveled by lack of care and social segregation. There is tremendous prejudice in Brazil against the homeless, who are often accused of being "rabble rouser" and "invaders" of empty and abandoned buildings. There are more than 400 sealed or under utilized buildings in downtown Sao Paulo. It is in these locations that the homeless want to live. Nevertheless, in recent years, "urban revitalization" projects have given emphasis to raising real estate values, and there is no room for the homeless. They are evicted towards the periphery. These revitalization projects sponsored by the city government and private companies (pressure of property speculation) do not give priority to reduce inequalities, but to exclusion, a social apartheid, which often includes violent actions from shock troops, security forces and private security. After almost 5 years of occupation, in May 2007, a meeting joined leaders from federal, state and municipal sphere, giving a new direction for the Prestes Maia families. A progressive and pacific withdrawal happened and the occupation was closed. Many had moved to with a support of the federal government, but are still waiting their promise: reform and rent for fair values social habitations for them. Since July, 2007, the Prestes Maia building is closed, sealed with concrete blocks.