Kitty Paranaguá (Rio de Janeiro, 1955) has a degree in Journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and a postgraduate degree in Photography – image, memory and communication from the Cândido Mendes University. She began her professional career as an intern at Jornal do Brasil, where she worked as a photojournalist between 1979 and 1983. After leaving photojournalism, she photographed architecture and interiors for over twenty years for magazines such as Kaza, Espaço D and Casa Cor.
Since 2000, the artist has been developing personal projects in photography, looking for a more independent path and language. She places the core of her essays and records in spatial relationships, and her artistic production is motivated by the use and changes of the city, and the way people and objects interact with urban space. Since 2010, Kitty has been coordinating Ateliê Oriente with other colleagues, a cultural space that encourages and disseminates theoretical and practical knowledge focused on photography.
Among several other essays, he produced Copacabana, which gave its title to the book of the same name (2011) and won an honorable mention at POY Latam – Photos of the Year Latin America (2013); the essay A Pele da Cidade (The Skin of the City) was exhibited at the Adeus Perimetral exhibition at the National Historical Museum (2015) in Rio de Janeiro; and Campos de Altitude (Fields of Altitude) was presented at various venues such as FotoRio, the Beijing International Photo Festival, the China Millennium Monument (both in 2017) and also at the Museu da Casa Brasileira (2021). Some of the images in the Copacabana essay are part of the Joaquim Paiva, Thomas Kellner and Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) collections in Paris.
Excerpts
“Copacabana is my thought´s line in photography. It’s where I started, I feel a whole process in it. Within the work, I realize a common thread. I started photographing Copacabana on the sidewalk and there was a photo that took me to the beach and, from that photo, there was a photo that took me to perceive the objects.”
Testemonial by Kitty Paranaguá to Yara Schreiber Dines, 2021
Altitude fields – “…One detail that really caught my attention in the project is how colorful, cheerful and full of references the houses are. Cariocas live in a city full of light and contrast, I’m a photographer from here, and in general I do my projects in the city, so this light and luminosity is incorporated into the way I photograph.” Interview by Kitty Paranaguá with Janaina Torres. 03/08/2017
Translation Yara S. Dines
Bibliography
ATELIÊ Oriente. Quem somos. Disponível em: https://www.atelieoriente.com/quem-somos. Acesso em: 09 abr. 2023.
DINES, Yara Schreiber. The Substance of Images Brazilian Women Photographers. São Paulo: Editora Grifo, 2021.
KITTY Paranaguá. 2018. Disponível em: https://www.kittyparanagua.com/. Acesso em: 09 abr. 2023.
https://janainatorres.com.br/kitty-paranagua-sou-uma-fotografa-do-rio-de-janeiro/. 03/08/2017.
