TIME

• Prize
• Photographer
  Fifi Tong, Brazil
• Studio
  Fifi Tong Producoes Fotograficas

"Time", is a series of portraits of people who has lived for 100 years or more, living in
Brazil.The photographs are shot with natural light, at their homes. I travel to many
cities in Brazil, searching for these centenarians. The project intends to be published as
a book.

Nowadays, life is prolonged in time, and that was unthinkable, decades ago: you can see
how good it is, by looking at these portraits I’m taking.
We can think of a longer perspective in the future to a lot more people in the planet. And
we ask ourselves: what will we accomplish until then? Or rather, what have we accomplished
so far, gives us the energy to get there?

These people have stories and maybe these stories are the key to understanding.
These stories may bring us a life lesson, a lesson on how to keep living.

These centenarians who cross my path, show me many things in their expressions: people
inhabited by life and that has understood so much.
They become quieter, as if the excess of words is a futility.
An image is like them, quiet. An image whispers something so we can pay attention.

So this work asks us all: do we look at them as if we want to learn?
This work puts the elderly at a level of importance, the importance that the art of the
portrait puts the person being photographed.

And their looks: sometimes questioning, sometimes contemplative, is always unsettling,
their eyes ask: do you see me?

In an era where eternal youth is exalted, creating misshapen faces, by the desire to stop
time - those who submit to many tricks to look forever young - these old looks, the skin
marked and designed by the years, what do they want to tell us?

These images, are images that disturb and pacify.

Awards Solo Exhibitions

Origin – Espaço Cultural Furnas, Rio de Janeiro, march 2013
Origin - Shopping Moóca, august 2012
Origin - Museum of Contemporary Art, Salta, Argentina, august 2012
Time is Passing - Centro Cultural Recoleta, XVII Encuentros Abiertos , august 2012.
Um Lugar Só Seu – contemporary work. Espaço de Arte Trio, São Paulo, Brazil,April 2012
Origin - Museum of Contemporary Art, Salta, Argentina, March 2011
Origin-Escola Prof. Carmelino José Dalsenter, Pompéia, São Paulo, September 2010
Origin- Centro Cultural Borges, , XVI Encuentros Abiertos, August 2010
Origin - Centro Cultural Taiguara, Poá, São Paulo, August 2010
Origin- Museu Histórico Voluntários da Pátria, Araraquara, São Paulo, May 2010
Origin - Memorial do Imigrante, São Paulo, August 2009
Sem Brincadeira - B&W portraits of children, Teatro São Pedro, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1994
Sem Brincadeira - B&W portraits of children, Museu Imagem e Som, São Paulo, 1993


Selected Group Exhibitions / Awards / Books / Publications

Exhibit, Jornada da Longevidade, at Memorial da America Latina, São Paulo, october 2013
Exhibit, O Mais Parecido Possível- O Retrato, at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, october 2012
Origin, published in 6mois, magazine edited in Paris, September 2012
Book Origin, 3º place, best Book Pro Category, International Photography Awards (IPA), 2010
Exhibit Eternal Feminine Plural , at the International Labour Organization, Geneve, 2010
Cover story from Foto Mundo, Magazine, September 2010
Publication of book Origem –(ORIGIN - Portraits of Families in Brazil), with 51 black and white portraits of families. (Published by Auana), 2009
Porto Seguro Photography Awards, collective exhibit, São Paulo, 2009- 12 portraits for the book ATITUDE, (Published by Auana), 2008
Photos for the book Expedicionários, chapter Antonio Vieira. (Published by Auana), 2008
Editorial From Mother to Daughter, published in Top Magazine, May issue, 2004
Photos for the book “Animi”, by Alexandra Tait, published in Switzerland, 2003
Cover story from Iris Foto Magazine, December issue, 1991
Photos for the book “ Traditional Spanish Food ”, by Inês Mendonça Petit, 1986
Photo published in “Best of College Photography Annual”,1983
Granted scholarship from Art Center College of Design, 1983
Awarded first place in the contest “Children with no Frontiers”,
Porto Alegre, Brazil,1979