In August 2012, the Sheet Located the eternalized girl years earlier in the book “Terra”, (23). Reporter Paulo Cezar Farias located it in a settlement in the municipality of Quedas do Iguaçu, Paraná.
Read below published at the time.
At the age of five, Jocel Borges was portrayed by Sebastião Salgado’s famous camera alongside their parents, who were going on in the interior of Paraná in search of a land lot.
That dirty face -to -eye face became a book cover and gained space in the media, museums and galleries in Brazil and abroad.
After 16 years, the 21 -year -old remains a landless rural worker.
He lives with her husband and daughter in a camp and says he has two dreams: a lot and two copies of the book that spread his image around the world. “One for me and one for my father.”
The book “Terra”, with Joceli’s face on the cover, was released in April 1997. In addition to a hundred black and white Brazilian rural photos, the work brings text by José Saramago and comes with a CD with songs by Chico Buarque.
At the time, the landless marched throughout the country to remember the first anniversary of the 19-land massacre in Eldorado do Carajás (PA), invaded properties to the hills and placed the prominent.
Today the theme has disappeared from the federal government agenda, and, much because of the consolidation of Bolsa Familia, the landless no longer have that army of militants.
Small land
After the click of Salgado, Joceli saw his parents conquer the definitive possession of a land. It was the end of a drama: months under canvas shacks, in a camp with scarce and without water, sanitation and medical assistance.
The family grew up, she married, had a daughter, and decided to move to a MST camp, even without the certainty that one day she will be lucky for her parents.
The farm has been invaded for five years -Owners try to reintegrate in court.
“I didn’t see him photographing me. I look like I’m looking at the picture, but I don’t remember seeing someone photographing me. Not even my family remembers the exact place where it was. I was felt to go out all messed up. But I’m happy for my father and my mother to conquer her land.”
The image was captured on the bank of the highway that connects Laranjeiras do Sul to Chopinzinho (west of Paraná).
Until he got the interview, the report had three meetings with Joceli. In the first, she didn’t want to talk. He said he was still shaken by his mother’s death with a head in a landless camp in 2009.
Joceli, then 17, witnessed the shots and, to protect himself, ran to the middle of a cornfield. The target was a friend of his mother, who survived even hit by two shots.
In the second attempt, she said she would write her career (see on this page).
Only on the third opportunity agreed to speak, but on the condition that before the photos could fix the look. “One of my greatest feelings and my father was me to go out in the photo of the book all messed up,” he says.
Joceli lives with her husband, Adair, and her daughter, Joslaine, in camp 15 km from the Quadas do Iguaçu Center.
In everyday life, it plants what it calls “offal”: cassava, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, watermelon and vegetables to sell in the city.
DREAMS
Joceli’s father, Alipio Borges lives in Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, 85 km of falls.
“I don’t know the man who portrayed my daughter. (…) I have already received proposals from people to go to court and seek rights [pelo uso da foto]but I know a lot about the fight. I leave this in the hands of God, “he says.
The photographer gave the copyright of the book “Terra” to the MST. Joceli and Alipio say they never talked to Sebastião Salgado. Years ago, she says, an institute created by the photographer offered her study opportunity in São Paulo. Not to stay away from the family, he refused.
And if you met today with Sebastião Salgado? “I wouldn’t even know what to say. I want to conquer my piece of land. I think studying is no longer important to me.”
