Our human tribe

A famed photographer's exhibition about Amazonia prompts Jane Cacouris to consider the wider issues.

Jane Cacouris

Jane Cacouris is a writer and consultant working in international development on environment, poverty and livelihood issues.

Amazonia from the air.

Neil Palmer/CIAT, Wikimedia Commons.

'What drew me back to the Amazon? …it was to savour afresh the unparalleled beauty of this vast region. For me, it is a last frontier, a mysterious universe of its own, where the immense power of nature can be felt as nowhere else on earth.'

These are the words of world renowned Brazilian photographer, Sebastião Salgado, in the foreword of his book, Amazônia. Over a period of six years, Salgado travelled around the Brazilian Amazon photographing its sweeping landscapes: forests, rivers, mountains, as well as the people who live there. A photograph of a Yanomani tribe on the edge of a vast vista with a towering mountain shrouded in cloud in the distance is an extraordinary snapshot of his travels. Salgado documented the daily lives of a dozen indigenous tribes, capturing on camera their warm family bonds, traditional dances and rituals, the artistry of their body painting and means of survival – hunting and fishing. Although Salgado was unable to communicate by speaking to the tribes he visited, he describes vividly how the human emotions he shared with his hosts - to love, laugh, cry and to feel happy or angry – served as their common language. He says:

I felt at home in my own tribe, that of all humans, where myriad systems of logic and reason are interwoven with my own, with those of Homo Sapiens.

During a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, I visited Salgado’s Amazônia exhibition at the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) in the centre of the city. The photographs are awe inspiring, all in black and white. They depict lush rainforest vegetation, winding rivers and waterfalls. Beautiful people with dark eyes, mainly naked, dressed, feathered and painted according to their tribal traditions sit against a black canvas backdrop or are portrayed in their natural surroundings. Salgado’s talent lies in capturing the epic beauty of the region’s landscapes, but also the delicate detail of the individual faces of the people he photographs. Each person looked straight at the camera lens – and as I looked back at them, it was as if I could see a little of their soul and personality. To the right of each portrait is the name of the person, and a note about their role in the tribe; a reminder that each face is not just a stunning photograph, but a human being who is valued and respected.

But Salgado’s portrayal of the Amazon rainforest, often referred to as “the world’s lung,” is not simply remarkable visual artistry. It is a powerful reminder of a number of issues that we collectively face today as a global tribe of human beings.

For over 10,000 years, humans have enjoyed an inter-connectedness with our natural environment, tending and living off the land. And this is still the case with the Amazonian tribes who rely so tangibly on tapping into the rainforest’s renewable wealth and provision – its animals, fruit, nuts and medicinal plants. A growing body of evidence shows that globally, indigenous people are especially good at sustainably protecting their territories. This is no exception in the Amazon; the indigenous reserves legally ringfenced by the Brazilian government are the areas that are most pristine. The areas where tribes have been driven out have been damaged irretrievably.

With our human quest to develop, the past two hundred years has seen a slow positive global trajectory towards eliminating absolute poverty, reducing conflicts and improving human rights. Encouraging on paper. But this positive change has come at a huge cost to our environment. Ironically, the same expanding global economy which has driven improvements in development and social justice, is based on fossil fuels and high consumption of natural resources causing climate change, mass extinctions and pollution. The results of these changes are hitting the world’s poorest communities the hardest – those who have done the least to cause them. The delicate balance that has existed between humans and our natural environment for millennia is being thrown out of kilter.

COP27, the annual UN global climate conference took place in Egypt at the end of 2022 and the impact of the climate crisis on vulnerable countries was finally on the agenda. It is promising to see growing public support from across the world for action. More people than ever before – including Christians and churches – are speaking up for climate justice, campaigning, joining marches and praying for change. Christian NGOs and pressure groups, such as Tearfund, Christian Action, and World Vision to name a few, are often at the forefront of climate campaigns.

So why are Christians calling for climate action? First, it’s an issue of ownership. As campaigner Ruth Valerio explains: the Bible tells them that creation was made by Jesus, through Jesus and for Jesus. Therefore, this world that was made brimming with abundance and vitality has immense value to God. The world is not ours to do with as we please, it belongs to its creator who has entrusted it to humans to care for. Second, it’s an issue of justice. The outworking of climate breakdown, such as global temperatures rising, floods, drought and extreme weather events has a disproportionate impact on people in poverty and who are already vulnerable, affecting their livelihoods, health and security. Christians believe that we’re all made ’in the image of God’. This speaks powerfully of equality between each one of us within our global human tribe.

Therefore acting justly means responding to the needs of our global neighbours, not only our immediate communities. The Bible says ‘Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy’. Christians – especially those living in privileged countries with social safety nets and funds to invest in climate resilience – are asked to stand up for equality and justice, calling on those in positions of power to make decisions that protect those who are more vulnerable, as well as this Earth that belongs to God.

At COP27 these Christian groups joined with countries vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to call for justice in climate financing. It’s a simple but radical case of compensation; rich nations who have already used far more than their fair share of carbon to develop their economies should now pay for the unavoidable “loss and damage” experienced by those whose homes, livelihoods and even lives are being lost as a result of the climate crisis. The protection of the Amazon also remains a critical theme.

Addressing the COP27 conference, Brazilian President Elect Lula said,

There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon.

Visiting the Amazon rainforest with my family in 2019 I was stunned, like Salgado, by its majesty and magnitude. Sleek, dark waters teeming with fish and crocodiles, trees with trunks that curved and curled, and the cacophony of sounds and song – amphibians, birds and beasts - that accompanied the sudden blackness of the night that fell like a curtain. This is creation as God meant it to be – in all its life and vitality. Can our vast human tribe, scattered and concentrated across the earth, who all laugh and cry and love under this single sky, unite and make the critical decisions needed to care for each other and our world? The protection of Amazonia is only one part of the solution, but it’s an integral part. So will we act? Before it’s too late and Salgado’s extraordinary photographs become simply a segment of history showing future generations the way it used to be?

Article

Art

Awe and wonder

Culture

30 May 2025

5 min read

The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect

Sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

Looking up at the front of Gaudi's cathedra; as the sun comes out from behind the spires.

Sagrada Familia cathedral, Barcelona.

Csaba Veres on Unsplash.

Barcelona is a magnet for tourists and art lovers because of the sense of exuberance and abundance created by the sinuous, sensuous curves and colours of Antoni Gaudí i Cornet’s amazing buildings. Whether we are encountering the shifting sea-like blues of the Casa Batlló, the abstract collage of the wave-like trencadis mosaic bench at Park Güell, the whirlpool-like undulations on the ceiling at Casa Milà, the columns in the Crypt of Colònia Güell which form a wood of trees, or the sunflower forms on the ceiling of the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí's work possesses an ecstatic sense of natural beauty. The Sagrada Familia, his still unfinished magnum opus, attracts over 4.5 million visitors a year, 85 per cent of whom come from outside Spain.

Known as ‘God’s Architect,’ Gaudí, in one of the last acts by the late Pope Francis, was declared Venerable, a step on the path to sainthood. He was recognised for the heroic virtues which encompass faith, hope, and charity, with Divine charity being paramount. The Vatican’s announcement noted that when Gaudí accepted the task of directing the project of the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in 1883, his focus was “making art a hymn of praise to the Lord” and “he considered it his mission to make God known and bring people closer to Him”. Also noted was the humility of his death after being struck a tram on June 7, 1926. Unrecognized, the architect was taken to the Hospital de la Santa Creu, the city’s hospital for the poor and, after receiving the last sacraments, he died three days later, on June 10. Around 30,000 people then attended his funeral.

The Sagrada Familia is primarily experienced as a forest of columns through which light falls in glowing colours. As in medieval cathedrals the eye is drawn upwards towards the light and glory of God, here by means of slender trunk-like columns, which branch (for reasons of form and function) before the ceiling of the basilica, where natural and artificial light mingle in star-like shapes resembling sunflower heads. Lower down, the abstract stained glass of Joan Vila-Grau filters the blazing natural light of the Catalan sun through primary colours to create a sense of mystery even among the thousands of tourists crowding the space for the best camera angles.

Among the columnar forest and stained light (if one ignores the baldachin, which is an example of the gaudy Gaudí), there is an almost total absence of explicit Christian iconography, creating a special interior sense of spiritual space. Unlike a medieval cathedral where the Christian story is told inside in stained glass, Gaudí placed the narrative element on the exterior of the building to form a Bible written in stone through three facades: Nativity, Passion and Glory.

Much of Gaudí's work was marked by his big passions in life: architecture, nature and his Catholic faith. He integrated into his architecture a series of crafts in which he was skilled - ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork and carpentry - and introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadis, a special type of mosaic made of waste ceramic pieces.

After a few years under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernista movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernism, culminating in an organic style inspired by nature. He was the great sculptor, utilising natural form in his work both for utilitarian and aesthetic reasons. He described nature as “the Great Book, always open, that we should force ourselves to read” and, as the art critic Robert Hughes recognised, thought that “everything structural or ornamental that an architect might imagine was already prefigured in natural form, in limestone grottoes or dry bones, in a beetle's shining wing case or the thrust of an ancient olive trunk.”

It is said that Gaudí’s aim at the Sagrada Familia was to bring heaven and earth together.

Although driven, single and celibate Gaudí was not an ascetic loner. He surrounded himself with work colleagues to whom he gave significant responsibility. He was also well aware that work on the Sagrada Familia could only be completed by the architects, sculptors and craftspeople who would follow his team and plans. Gaudí and his primary patron, Eusebi Güell, were men of great vision and vast ambition, resulting, among other accomplishments, in the Crypt of Colònia Güell, which consists only of the lower nave of what was intended to be a larger building. Their example suggests that to reach for the impossible and fail can nevertheless result in significant achievement.

The Crypt of Colònia Güell is a culminating point in Gaudi's work, where he included for the first time practically all of his architectural innovations. He said that without the large-scale experiments he undertook there, he would not have dared apply those same geometries to the Sagrada Familia. It is the place where, according to Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki, he “overcame all established limits regarding shapes.”

This church of Colònia Güell was blessed by the Bishop of Barcelona in 1915 and today functions both as parish church and tourist attraction. Like the Sagrada Familia, albeit on a smaller more intimate scale, its varied columns form a wood of trees. Flower-like, cross-shaped stained glass in primary colours creates a warmth to the space which is complemented by the red brick forming the walls and catenary arches of this cave-like space.

This is a warm, womb-like enclosure; intimate yet archetypal. It is real and usable communal space while also being of great architectural worth, innovation and beauty. Here the ‘heaven in ordinarie’ of the Eucharist is celebrated in the surround of natural forms recreated by man-made means. It is said that Gaudí’s aim at the Sagrada Familia was to bring heaven and earth together. It may well be that this aim is more fully realised in the earthy intimacy of the Colònia Güell’s wooded Crypt than in the soaring grandeur of the Sagrada Familia.

In welcoming the news that Gaudí had been declared Venerable, Cardinal Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona, said “It is a recognition not only of his architectural work but something more important.” He continued: “He is saying you... amid life's difficulties, amid work, amid pain, amid suffering, are destined to be saints.” Ultimately, he notes, “Gaudí’s life and work show us how beauty and holiness can transform the world” as they include the “recognition that sanctity can be found amid scaffolding, suffering, sublime obsession.”

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