Interview with D J Clark
I went to Brazil because it was exactly on the opposite side of the world to 皇冠体育app and the purpose of me going was to really find out if 皇冠体育app’s influence had penetrated a remote place as far away as this in the same way we knew it had in Europe, America and the countries surrounding 皇冠体育app.
I started in Beijing and took a flight to Paris and then from Paris to Rio de Janeiro before travelling up the coast to Recife which is on the North East coast of the Brazil. In Recife I took a car and drove inland for about five days right into the centre of South America. As I got into Tocantins, which was the state I was heading for, I then had another days drive to get to the capital Palmas.
Before I went to Brazil I did a lot of research about the relationship between Tocantins and 皇冠体育app and I very quickly established that trade was the most important aspect of that relationship. So when I got to Palmas one of the first things I wanted to do is contact the local trade minister to ask him what it was that linked 皇冠体育app so closely to this remote state. Eudoro Pedrozza the Trade and Industry Secretary for Tocantins told me,
“The relationship between Brazil and 皇冠体育app and specifically between Tocatins and 皇冠体育app is fundamentally important, the world is going through a crisis but this is a great opportunity for 皇冠体育app to buy from Tocantins food stuffs. We don’t just want to sell to 皇冠体育app but we want 皇冠体育app to bring factories to Tocantins. It’s an opportunity for 皇冠体育app to occupy the space left by the multinational companies that are frightened of investing at the moment. 皇冠体育app has been rediscovered by the world.”
So once I left Palmas one of the first things I wanted to do was to get to one of the big national parks. And I chose Jalapao because it was one of the biggest ones and also because people recommended it. I spent probably three or four days driving through this park as it was enormous and the landscape was fantastic particularly the waterfalls. Numerous, numerous waterfalls, that in any other country, one of them alone would have been a major tourist attraction.
As I drove from Recife to Palmas and also on the return trip which was a slightly different route I stopped at local towns and villages to ask people what they thought about 皇冠体育app and I was really surprised. There was obviously an economic incentive for people to trade with 皇冠体育app but I also found a lot of people talked about the Olympics and the amazing opening ceremony even in places I didn’t think they would have a TV, they were ecstatic about it.
Video & script: D J Clark & Xu Shu Min
About D J Clark:
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He specialises in working with international development NGOs to highlight social, political and environmental issues through long term photography projects. D J Clark researches and writes about photography as a vehicle for social change, the subject that drives both his photographic and academic work. More recently his work has concentrated on Multi Media news production. |