Produced between 2020 and 2024, Amada família is Juliette Malveau Amado’s first book. Inspired by research into the absent figure of her grandfather, José Amado, the photographer set foot in Brazil for the first time in 2020, a country where she now spends part of the year.
Through her journey across Brazil and her encounters with people bearing the name Amado, Juliette transforms the search for a missing grandfather into a broader reflection on the legacies of migration, the bonds we forge, and the families we sometimes build to fill a void. She crafts an intimate photographic narrative in which Brazil emerges as a vast, contradictory land, deeply imbued with a desire to pass on traditions.
Published by LeMégot, the book brings together 50 colour photographs taken between 2020 and 2024. It is accompanied by an introductory text by Ioana Mello, exhibition curator, as well as a personal text by Juliette, addressed to her grandfather, in which she reflects on this journey and the adventures that marked this quest.
Juliette Malveau Amado’s Introductory Letter
“Dear José Amado,
Everybody always said “the Brazilian” when talking about you. All I have left of you is this name, Amado. You are a stranger, but somehow we look alike. I arrive in Brazil and heard that name everywhere, like a familiar anchor. How lucky, to be called « beloved ».
I met Giovanni Amado, a taxi driver in Copacabana. I spend hours sitting in the café on rua Siqueira Campos, listening to him talk about the great line of the Amados in Brazil. In Alagoinhas, deep in the Bahian countryside, Maria-José Amado cut aloe vera from her garden and told me her family’s only carried this name for two generations.
After long hours on the road, I arrived at Jucilene Amado’s house, in the agreste of Pernambuco. João Vitor was waiting for me, holding onto the gate. His grandmother Maria walkd me through the streets of Pedra, introducing me to the neighbors. We kept talking over bolo de milho and suco de caju, and I watched the light beginning to fall: we still had not even started taking pictures.
José and his wife Iara sat together under the flamboyant tree in front of the house. Iara let me listen to her shells. Red like the flamboyant flowers, I photographed their daughter Emilia Amado’s motorcycle. We drank coffee beside their collection of Jorge Amado books. Natalia read me a few pages from Cacao, standing in front of her ancestors’ old textile factory in São Cristóvão.
In Alagoas, wooden carrancas welcomed me at the entrance of a low little house. The fan kept flipping through the pages of Elaine Amado’s photo album. Her daughter sitting on her lap, the two of them posed for me in the yard, surrounded by the bonecas de barro.
Back in Rio, Maurilio Amado picked me up at the bus station under heavy tropical rain. He took me to eat with the whole family at a lanchonete in downtown Petrópolis. His mother, Pérola, has your face.
Ever since we met, I still receive blessing messages from Kelly’s family back in Bahia. I remember their little house by the railway tracks in Alagoinhas.
My journey came to an end along the Estrada do Coco. Evening fell while I walked the beaches of southern Sergipe. I photographed a statue facing the sea. I walked around to face her: it is Our Lady of the Good Journey.
Without ever knowing it, you brought me to all these places. I spoke about you to strangers, trying to find you in their faces. Maybe some things are carried silently, from one generation to another. Somehow, you left me something: where there is emptiness, something can be created”.
More information
Juliette Malveau Amado – Amada família
Published by Éditions LeMégot
210 × 297 mm, English, Portuguese and French
Introduction Text by Ioana Mello
Design by Matthieu Becker
Editorial byLoli Melon
250 copies
ISBN : 978-2-492826-38-2, 30 €
Disponible en précommande.
