Fernando Brito

Fernando Brito

Your Steps Were Lost in the Landscape

January 2 - February 2, 2014

As a photojournalist living and working in Culiacán, Mexico, artist Fernando Brito has witnessed countless human casualties of drug-related violence. While photographing crime scenes for Culiacán's El Debate newspaper, Brito also began creating images for his series, Your Steps Were Lost in the Landscape, in order to provide a more nuanced look at the increasing violence in his hometown. Brito intentionally frames each recent murder he encounters within the larger landscape, at times blending the scene so seamlessly that, at first glance, one might miss the presence of a body entirely. While the stunning colors and scenic compositions of these large-scale prints initially soften the blow of seeing decaying corpses, the anonymity and space surrounding the deceased only temporarily distances the viewer from the uncomfortable notion that these people could be anyone and everyone at the same time.

"The idea of this project is to show a person lying on the ground, a person leaving his family, and relatives grieving over his loss. It attempts to prove that a human being is not just a number and to show that something is wrong, that this sort of death is not normal, and to try to increase people's sensitivity."  

Fernando Brito (b. 1975) currently lives and works in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He studied marketing at the Universidad de Occidente Culiacán and since 2004 he has been the photography editor of the newspaper El Debate based in Culiacán. Your Steps Were Lost in the Landscape was featured in the exhibition Crónicas at FotoFest in Houston, Texas, in 2013 along with six other photographers focusing on the drug wars in Mexico. In 2011 he was the recipient of the Discoveries Prize in addition to the World Press Photo Award.