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When we sit down to talk to José Sérgio, there is already an object being leafed through on the table. Even as we talk about the photojournalist's career, the beginnings of each of his endeavours, there are already portraits on the stage between two cups of coffee. Presentes! — just like that, with an exclamation mark — is a book of portraits of Porto's African and Afro-descendant community. It's an extensive collection, living proof that aims to disprove the cliché that Porto is a city with few black people.
Starting with one of his many beginnings, José Sérgio discovered photography through theatre in Maputo. He looked to the Casa Velha Cultural Association for a vehicle to explore amateur theatre, but there he found some abandoned cameras. "I had spectacular laboratories and machines, almost as good as new, but it puzzled me why they weren't being used - until I realised that there was no film, no chemicals for developing, no consumables."
At great cost, he began experimenting with photography, paying for the materials out of his own pocket and setting out to build a portfolio that he presented to Maputo's "Jornal de Notícias". Then came the opportunity to be on the back cover of the sports weekly "Desafio", with a half-page for one photograph a week. "The truth is that it went well for me; nobody imposed anything on me. It was whatever came to mind, and I pursued all sports — all except football."
© Nuno Miguel Coelho
Photography hasn't stopped happening since then — even during a short break from working with Médecins Sans Frontières, he still finds a way to make photographs. And it was as a freelancer that he arrived in Portugal, once again carrying a portfolio and taking it to the newspapers. Newly arrived in Lisbon, and still unfamiliar with his surroundings, he notices that Praça do Marquês is home to the editorial offices of Diário de Notícias and Expresso.
This is just the first of several coincidences in a chain: when he arrives at Praça do Marquês, he only finds a parking space next to the Expresso, which is his first stop. Once he arrived, at the reception he was mistaken for someone waiting for an interview and was taken to a floor where the newsroom of the music weekly Blitz was located. "I didn't even realise how I'd got there, and at Blitz they weren't expecting me at all. In the midst of the confusion, and despite the fact that they weren't looking for a photojournalist at the time, the director of Blitz asked him to leave his portfolio with him. With no more copies to take to other newsrooms, there was nothing left to do but wander around Lisbon and wait for a call. The call came, and his career in Portugal began. First at Blitz, then at the weekly Sol, and finally in his favourite format: freelance.
© Nuno Miguel Coelho
He arrived in Porto as a freelancer. And what brought him to Porto has come to define the way he sees the city. José moved here for love, and although he already knew the city, the truth is that rediscovering it while in love with a Porto woman inevitably made him fall in love with Porto too.
And the seeds of Presentes! spread from the very first meeting. Coming from a capital where the black community is settled in specific areas, here in Porto he finds a dispersed community. A community, too, that didn't meet much in socialising spaces. "At various times I felt like I was the only African in the place where I was. I would ask people, and the answer was always the same: 'in Lisbon there are many, here there aren't so many'." A truism that José saw denied every day. Walking down the street, using public transport, shopping. These "invisible" Africans really existed, and the idea arose to start finding them and making them obvious to those to whom they were not. If only one by one.
He then began approaching Africans he met on the street. He would always start with a conversation and then move on to a portrait. He always wanted the portraits to be a construction of both the photographer and the subject. And at the moment of the portrait, José realised a fallacy of his: he used to direct his actors with the suggestion "if you wanted to send a portrait back home, how would you like to be seen?".
It worked with the first person, but not with the second because that person's home is Porto, where they have all their family and friends. Hence the essential subtitle Presentes! — Africans and Afro-descendants in Porto. This is a book that has given José ample opportunity to value this "invisibilised" layer of Porto's population - but this book is just one phase of a long project that began with an exhibition at Espaço Mira. And given the extensive material of interviews and portraits that José has accumulated, it's a project that still has some way to go. If only because a census never really ends. Or, at least, it doesn't end as long as the idea that Porto is a city with few black people lasts.
by Ricardo Alves
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