Documentary photography has been Nilmar Lage’s tool to help build the utopia of a fairer society. A journalism graduate based in Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, he focuses on covering human rights and environmental issues, exposing exploitation and proposing alternatives to so-called “development” processes.
His work Violent Removal, a finalist in the Portfolio category of the FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025, revisits images taken after the 2015 Fundão Dam collapse—a socio-environmental crime now marking its 10th anniversary. The series stands as a vital visual record of the struggles faced by thousands displaced by dam failures or forced to leave high-risk areas.
Learn more about this committed photographer in the interview below.
How old are you? Where do you currently live and work?
I’m 43 years old, living in Ipatinga/MG, but working across Brazil and occasionally Latin America.
Tell us about your journey in photography. When did you start, and why? What role does photography play in your life?
I began photographing in 2003 during my journalism studies. As a resident of Minas Gerais’ interior, where local media avoided investigative reporting, I turned to documentary photography and film. The 2015 Fundão Dam collapse expanded my focus to human rights and environmental issues, exposing exploitation and reimagining “development.”
Photography lets me inhabit realities beyond my own, interpreting and sharing these intersections to spark dialogue—sometimes daring to touch the utopia of a fairer society.
I hold a Master’s in Rural Studies (UFVJM, 2021) for a photo-ethnographic project on the Quilombola do Ausente community, a postgraduate degree in Film (Estácio de Sá, 2019), and trained at Montevideo’s Photography Center and Cuba’s EICTV.
As an independent journalist, I collaborate with Greenpeace, Agência Pública, Reuters, and movements like MST and MAB. My documentaries include Maura e Robinson (ex-political prisoners) and Senta a Pua (the 1963 Usiminas massacre). My photobook Corpos Conflitantes won Minas Gerais’ 2017 Human Rights Award. Violent Removal received a 2021 UN Migration Special Mention, and in 2023, I was honored with the Chico Ferramenta Human Rights Trophy.
Tell us about your work selected as a finalist for the FotoDoc Photo Contest 2025. When and where was it created? What was your vision? How does it fit into your broader body of work?
Violent Removal began in 2018 after my photobook Corpos Conflitantes (2017). Revisiting archives from the Fundão Dam collapse, I expanded the legal concept of “esbulho possessório” (forcible dispossession) to include violations of constitutional rights. For FotoDoc 2025, I focus on post-collapse images, marking the crime’s 10th anniversary.
What projects are you currently working on? What are your near-future plans for your photographic practice?
I continue documentary work, currently on Pós-Vale do Aço (my region’s post-industrial landscape) and Modos de Ser (intersecting religious practices). I don’t plan to stop—ever.
Translated by Deepseek AI
