First edition of A Grande Seca by Ronald Ansbach (2015). Medium format softcover in near fine condition. Slight shelf wear to outer cover and insert. Please see photos for reference. About From 2006 to 2014 the photographer Ronald Ansbach wandered through São Paulo searching for spaces and places which would reveal him the city’s essence. This endeavor’s outcome comes now under the title A grande seca [The Big Drought], published by Madalena Publishing House and edited by Iatã Cannabrava. Showing 64 photographs, the book represents a circular, imaginary ride across the city, heading from its downtown to its borders and the other way around. By juxtaposing such pictures, the city has its autophagic and constantly mutant nature revealed.According to the author, “The city’s image and memory are built from routes. As we internalize the city with our eyes and the other senses, we build a constantly updated mind map of it. The experienced city sways constantly between the map (or the abstract city) and the concrete reality of the routes”.The book’s title has a metaphoric sense: “The big drought is not just the drought of our water supply crisis, which indeed can be seen in the pictures, but it is also the absence behind the dereliction of our public spaces, the denial of the city as a collective locus”, he completes.
