Let’s Play – Emanuela Franco

Artist’s Name: Emanuela Franco

Year: 2007

Brazilian Journalist, with more than ten years of experience within Brazil and Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and United Kingdom). Develops the “Let’s Play” (Vamos Brincar”) photographic project through records of images of children playing outdoors.

The photojournalism project “Let’s Play” aims to record images of children playing in the streets of Brazil. “Let’s Play” reviews the games currently forgotten by most children who live in large cities. Playing “paste-stick” (pega-pega), “hide-hide” (esconde-esconde), “seven sins” (sete pecados), among other games, are part of the tradition of some communities and societies of inland places.

Rescuing the games of the past is fundamental in that society where new technologies invade everything. One of the focuses of the project is the social isolation of children living in large skyscrapers, locked up as a result of the expansion of urban violence. Answering certain questions to reflect on the importance of playing in the streets with friends:

• Are they still playing on the streets as in the past?
• What kind of games do children practice in the year 2020?
• Can it be compared how the children of the interior of Brazil played in 2006 and how do they play in the year 2020?

The proposal consists in documenting the most common street games to present this work in exhibitions and possibly with the publication of articles.

The technical characteristics used to capture the images are diagonal photographic composition and black and white photos.