My name is Hugo Santarem Rodrigues. I am a researcher with a camera.

 

My work with images employs photography, audiovisual media, and archival materials as methods of independent investigation and semiotic analysis.

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I am currently an MA student at the University of Lisbon, where I focus on postcolonialism, connected histories, and the formation of Brazilian culture.

 

As a portrait photographer, I use this skill set to craft images that open space to the stories of those portrayed and critically recover their personal histories in a critical yet empathetic way.

 

My educational background includes a degree in Social Communication (IESB), a specialization in Visual Arts (Senac), photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Branded Content (Miami Ad School Brazil), and screenwriting (Roteiraria).

 

2002 - I complete my BA in Social Communication (Advertising). Working as a creative in AD agencies, and audiovisual production, shaped how I understand the making of frames, the contestation of memory, and the ways language organizes the world.

 

2004 - I leave Brasília and settle in Maranhão. Living in the state, combined with my family’s social history, expands my understanding of Brazil as it is lived. During this period, I learn the story of Dona Pureza and make a commitment: to transform that experience into cinema. I begin a long-term investigation into slave labor, which culminates in the feature film project Pureza.

 

2014–2015 - I begin the Interior project, dedicated to investigating the origins of Brazilian cultural traditions. The research gains a new dimension when I connect the study of Brazilian cultural ancestry to my own ancestry. I take a DNA test, trace parallels, and assume a double methodological position: researcher and object of research.

 

2015 - I travel to India and Nepal to study Buddhism, broadening my perspective on identity, territory, belonging, and coloniality.

 

2018 - I undertake my first expeditions to the African continent, seeking historical connections and Brazilian cultural origins.

 

2020 - On the verge of traveling to Africa again, I am prevented from doing so by the pandemic. I turn isolation into a period of critical study on the process of colonization in Brazil.

 

2023–2024 - I return to Interior as fieldwork, moving through territories of former colonies and confronting sources and evidence in loco. This cycle reshapes my understanding of colonialism in Brazil and consolidates two interpretive lines: Indo-Brasilidade and the Immigration Myth.

 

Throughout this process, I have funded my research through my work as an advertising professional, photographer, and filmmaker—a path shaped by clients and friends who supported my trajectory.

 

Across authorial projects and collaborations, a number of awards and recognitions have emerged as a result of this trajectory.

Awards:
Winner - Spotlight Awards
Winner and 2nd place - Chromatic Awards

2nd - Monovisions Awards
3rd - (IPA) International Photography Awards + 6 honorable mentions

3rd - The Independent Photographer
4th - Xposure Festival
Top10 - See Me

Festivals and exibithions
- Festival de Fotografia de Tiradentes - Minas Gerais, Brazil - 2019
- Affordable Art Fair - NYC - 2019
- Xposure Festival - UAE - 2019
- Galeria Almeida Prado - São Paulo, Brazil - 2017
- Artlab Gallery - São Paulo, Brazil -2019

- Divino Galeria - Brasília , Brazil- 2020

- GW Gallery - São Paulo, Brazil - 2020