Babilônia - Benoit Fournier

Babilônia journeys between fiction and reality, crossing the favela of Babilônia in Brazil, in which I have lived since 2013. Babylon community is one of the oldest favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It is located on a hill, with rich vegetation and animal life. For this reason some residents say that its name was originally a reference to the hanging Gardens of Babylon in the Bible. The favela is an organic construction where people have informally occupied the land, and it is relentlessly changing and growing. Its atmosphere is linked to the experience of walking through Babylon’s winding paths, and at the same time, to the movement of that evolving space. My work draws inspiration from this very movement, from this random architecture with its own imperfections. I build an imaginary city using diverse photographic techniques, from digital to pinhole photography. I construct cameras from objects found in the favela, and then develop the photographic paper in the dark room.