Como se faz um deserto (The Making of a Desert) is a project that involves a series of photographs and a publication bringing together all documents and texts that were relevant to the work process. The search for understanding what would define Brazil’s hinterlands (sertões) defined much of this research, going through cartographic, historical, and linguistic terms and a trip through the region.

The whole project was thought of as a documentation of the work process, shown through photographs and texts produced during and after the trip through the sertões region.

It is also part of the book texts by the Brazilian historian and writer Janaína Amado, the Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, and a research realized by the geographers Ângela Ferreira, Yuri Simonini and George Dantas.

The publication Como se faz um deserto is a way to expose all this visual and conceptual research, defined by a sequence of texts and images. In this process, the dialogue established with the curator Cristiana Tejo was fundamental to drawing a line between the origins of the project and its work process, and Vitor Cesar’s graphic design built a visual discourse that is extremely important to this book and the whole comprehension of this project.

The research and publication was made possible by Bolsa de Estímulo à Produção em Artes Visuais,  granted by FUNARTE in 2013.