All Photos © Alyssa Miserendino.
Chicago-based photographer Alyssa Miserendino‘s documentation of her own abandoned home in 2004 paved the way for her current project Our World Insideout. During the economic crash in 2009 the familiar emotion of loss and displacement resonated with her so much so that she began documenting foreclosed homes in the Chicago area, and eventually homes in Brazil and New Orleans. Miserendino has spent time photographing families in Brazil who are part of the favelas, historical abandoned sites, and reclaimed homes. In New Orleans the project focused on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and what was left untouched versus what people have squatted in to make their own home.

Miserendino is currently working with an organization in Brazil to help turn the most popular squatted in building into the first urban public housing building in Rio de Janeiro. She says, “I created the imagery with the hope that this project will incite a visual, global dialogue concerning the used and unused resources; thus inspiring change. It touches on the many levels of humanity and one of the most sacred places for us: home.”

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All photos © Luis Fabini. Above: 2010 Vaqueiros / Brazil. The vaqueiros wear the handmade uniform of protective leather clothing necessary for roping cows amidst lethal thorns throughout the bush caatinga.

“Horsemen of the Americas”, is a personal study of a breed of man whose culture and relationship to its natural habitat has continued to adapt and evolve over 400 years. These working horsemen, though seldom recognized, have been a pillar of the economy and the history of the Americas since the time of the Conquest. In the United States and Canada these horsemen are called cowboys, in Mexico they are known as charros, in Ecuador as chagras, in Colombia and Venezuela as llaneros, in Peru as chalanes and qorilazos, in Chile they are called the huasos, Brazil has its pantaneiros and vaqueiros, and  Uruguay and Argentina’s the gauchos.

“Man and horse is the most formidable partnership ever forged between two living beings. Through an intrinsic bond with the land, a philosophy of masculinity, freedom and courage, these magnificent centaurs invented a new way of life, and continue today, though their number has dwindled. A way of life is surely disappearing: their traditions, their languages, and their particular legacy is being lost forever”, Fabini says.  Fabini started working on this project in 2004, and has spent an average of eight months a year on the road since then. He will be looking for a book publisher and exhibition opportunity over the next year as he concludes the 8 year project. To see more of  Luis Fabini’s work click here.
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All photos © Art Wolfe. Above: Connective Glance, Bahia, Brazil.

Well-established as a landscape and wildlife photographer, I began my love affair with the horse on the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania and Kenya, where vast herds of zebras, spirited and wild, cross the open landscape.  Naturally my lens turned toward the zebra’s domesticated cousin as a symbol of power, grace and form. In these new impressions I explore Brazil’s culturally diverse Pantaneiro and Lusitano traditions; France’s unbridled and energetic Camargue; and the American West’s open range horses. – Art Wolfe

The UNBRIDLED exhibit is now showing at the Art Wolfe Gallery in Seattle’s SODO district.

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