Odilon Frazão (M.A., photography, 2022)
Project: Due to Suadade
Website: www.odilonfrazao.com
Odilon Frazão is photographer, world explorer, and international relations specialist who senior thesis project included a studio exhibition of his work.
Odilon Frazão: “Saudade is a word that is deeply linked to the Luso-Brazilian culture and soul. People from Portuguese-speaking countries use saudade to express feelings that mix longing, melancholy, yearning, loneliness, love, temporal or spatial distance, and permanent loss. These feelings arise due to the absence of a person, a place, a thing, or a moment in time. Due to Saudade is a personal photographic response to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This photographic body of work reflects a minimalist portrait of fragmented remembrances of these socially distanced times and examines the influences of photography on saudade and vice-versa. Set in a dystopian environment of an empty city, the images present lonely characters on a solitary quest to fill the void of their saudade feelings and achieve happiness. This project challenges the visual representation of emotion and discusses the relationship between photography, memory, and saudade.”