Andrea Eichenberger

Andrea Eichenberger (b. 1976, Brazil) is a Brazilian artist. After studying visual arts in Brazil, she did a PhD in visual anthropology, ​​between Brazil and France. The experience of encounter is at the heart of her practice and artistic research. In 2006, she was winner of the best photographic narrative of Festival Fazendo Gênero 7, Brazil, in 2012, she was winner of the Prix UPP Découverte, in Paris and in 2013, she received the price Funarte Women in Visual Arts of Brazilian Ministry of Culture. Her work has been exhibited in Brazil, New Zealand, France and the US.

Translitorânea
Translitorânea (the Transcoastal Road), or BR101 is the road that runs along the Brazilian coast from the north to the south, joining different states and regions for 4.542 km. In this project, in which travel and photography are considered as the means of getting close to places and people, the road becomes a stage for a road trip marked by encounters and life stories that highlight the geographical, economic, social and cultural diversity of Brazil today.

Trip is often understood as a metaphor for distance or escape. Here, it is a metaphor for encounter, a way to approach places and people. On the road, Eichenberger stopped to photograph landscapes and things found on her way, as well as encounters, sometimes prosaic, sometimes more complex, with inhabitants from the roadside, living in a world far from big cities, in the heartlands of Brazil.

Faithful to the intrinsic qualities of photography, as well as showing an interest for the banality of common places and everyday life, the artist travelled along the country to deliver impressions on how people are living, modifying their environment, but also how in return they are modified themselves. Situated between social documentary and visual diary, between politics and poetic, this trip conveys a testimony about a country at a specific moment, and at the same time, paints a subjective picture of this territory.

http://www.andreaeichenberger.com/