Between the Documentary and the Poetic: A Conversation with Pauliana Valente Pimentel

Abstract

In Pauliana Valente Pimentel's studio, in the Coruchéus complex in Lisbon, photographs are arranged in an apparent randomness. They are lives told in images, but there is a latent tension between the documentary and the poetic - the lyrical subjectivities that cross the objectivity of the lens, transform everyday life into a spectacle that has just ended or is about to begin. Curiously, she's a geologist. Although photography is decisive in science, it was in capturing human geology that Pauliana Valente Pimentel found her vocation: her work exudes the intersection of the oneiric universe and narrative improvisation, which is nonetheless real and concrete.

Her journey into photography began in 1999, with the publication of photo reports for travel magazines while she was still working as a geologist. But it was David Alan Harvey, a National Geographic photographer and Magnum member between 1997 and 2020, who triggered her career in authorial photography. She also had close contact with Amy Arbus, Bob Sacha, Alex Majoli, and Erich Lessing, which allowed her to refine the plastic, formal and technical strategies used to create the intense photo narratives that characterize her work.