Bio | Paula Sampaio

Paula Sampaio was born in Belo Horizonte (MG), in 1965. As a girl, came with her family to Amazon and later chose Belém to live and work. She started photographing professionally in 1987 and picked for photojournalism. She attended workshops in the Photoactive Company and worked at Photograph Reporters Committee of Professional Journalists Union of the State of Pará (Sinjor -PA). She graduated in Communication at the Federal University of Pará (UFP ) and is specialist in Communication and Semiotics at PUC – MG.

 

Since 1990 she releases projects and conducts tests of photograph on the processes of migration and settlement in the Amazon, from the daily lives of communities living on the banks of the great open roads in the region over the past 50 years, particularly the Belém-Brasília highway and Transamazônica, with special interest in memoirs and oral intangible heritage of communities. In addition long-term projects, she works on series which are notes / reflections on the nature and fragility of human beings, in which text and image form a statement of daily actions.

 

Her works has won awards and received research grants from institutions as Funarte / RJ, J. Mother J. International Fund for Documentary Photography / USA, Vitae Foundation / SP, Brazil Porto Seguro Award for Photography / SP, Romulo Maiorana Foundation, Ipiranga Foundation and SECULT / PA, ANDI / UNICEF / DF. She has works in the collections of the MAM / SP, MASP / PIRELLI, Museum of Contemporary Art / RS, Museum of Pará, the National Library Foundation / RJ, Itaú Cultural Encyclopedia, Foreign Ministry, Joaquim Paiva Collection, Fundación Comillas and ProDocumentales / Spain, Fifty Crows / USA, TAFOS / Peru.

 

Photo – reporter for the newspaper O Liberal(1988 -2015)  and currently is also the technical advisor of Centro Cultural SESC Boulevard (2009-2015). She keeps testing and developing her projects and in progress .