Cafuné: interview with Rafael Fabrés / #URBANinsights

#URBANinsights is a series of exclusive interviews and insights dedicated to the winners of URBAN Photo Awards. The series continues with Rafael Fabrés, winner of the URBAN Book Award 2023 with his project Cafuné, chosen by Commission member and world-renowned photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen.

“In Brazilian Portuguese the word “cafuné” is a gesture of affection towards a loved one, brushing through a loved one’s hair. This project is a gesture of affection towards Rio de Janeiro in all its extremes. Focusing tangentially on the “pacification” of the favelas of Rio, the project is a document of the “Marvelous City” during the World Cup, the Olympic games, the Pope’s visit, and the massive protests in 2013. While the work documents a fundamental period in Brazilian history, the project is both personal and intimate. A photographer’s diary of the joy and sorrow of a city as intense and unequal as Rio de Janeiro. A personal reconciliation and a bittersweet farewell to a place and a time of extremes.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, and congratulations on your award-winning project, “Cafuné“.

Before getting to the core of this particular project, we want to give our audience, and those potentially approaching your work for the first time, an overview of your career and your identity as a photographer.
When did your passion first start, and how did your professional career as a photographer kick off?

My name is Rafael Fabrés and I’m a visual artist specialized in documentary storytelling.
After more than a decade working as a photojournalist, my work nowadays explores the connections between identity, spirituality, displacement and belonging.

I graduated in Media Communication, and shortly after my path led me to the world of advertising where I started working in a company drawing storyboards in 2006.
Initially I was always a bigger fan of cinema and comics than of photography, although from a very young age I always really liked traveling. This is how I started my first travel reportages.
My professional career began in 2010 when I went to live in Haiti for 2 years and started working as a photojournalist and later when I moved to Brazil for 5 years to cover the Pacification events in Rio de Janeiro.

After your BA in Media Communication (UEM), you went on to complete a Master’s Degree in Cinematography (ESCAC) and have shot several short-films since, as well as video footage for the cross-platform project “Cafuné”.
How do you feel that studying and subsequently adding the medium of the moving image to your work has enriched your practice when it comes to still images?

I don’t know if it has improved it but for me, it is essential to be able to express what you feel. Photo, video, drawing, writing, sound… The tool with which you do it is the least important thing. It took me several years to understand that any medium is the right one if it helps you express your vision in an honest and coherent way.

Is the study of cinematography something you would generally recommend for those wishing to pursue documentary photography?

Not necessarily. I would recommend that they live and get to know themselves to know who they really are and what they really like (not what they think can be successful or commercial).
Only by focusing on what you are passionate about will you be able to make your voice recognizable and most importantly, you will have something to say.
Curiosity, passion and having an open mind are the best qualities to dedicate to this or any job.

Your work often delves into the themes of identity, displacement, and belonging. What continues to draw you to these complex subjects, and how do you approach them through your photography practice?

My own experiences as a human being. After so many years living in different places and subjected to all kinds of experiences, I identify with people who have gone through similar situations, but I do empathize too with people who have experienced different things that make me see the world and understand it with other eyes. The root is connecting with what makes us all human, regardless of where we live. As much as possible I use my work as a mode of therapy and self-inquiry.
When I talk about others, I talk about myself and I get to know myself better. And if through this way I can make my work connect with other people, then I am on the right path.

“Cafuné” captures significant moments in Rio de Janeiro´s history, particularly the “pacification” of the favelas and events like the Pope’s visit and the massive protests in 2013. How do you balance capturing the factual and the subjective at the same time, like documenting the political and social realities of a place, whilst maintaining a personal and intimate perspective towards your subjects?

For me it is a necessity to be able to express myself through images.
Initially part of my photos were dedicated to my work as a photojournalist and the rest were personal images.
It took a while until I understood that there was no difference between them as long as they were images that contributed to what I wanted to tell. But to answer this question in all fairness, I guess I balance it through time and persistence.
And submerging oneself totally into the place and people you’re documenting.

The intimate and poetic images you have captured, even within the really harsh realities that surrounded you, are very moving and manage to capture the essence of the moments you were witnessing. Just like the title of the project “Cafuné, the act of brushing through a loved one’s hair as a gesture of affection”, it feels like you used your camera as a brush to paint all your love and passion for the city, and all the profound feelings you had for the events taking place.
Was that your intent from the beginning? Or did the project start with a different objective in mind?

After spending so much time living in Brazil, I always thought that the last thing I wanted to do was a work that addresses the clichés of the foreigner visiting Brazil and focuses on violence, sex, the beach, samba, etc.
For me, the important thing was to portray the events I experienced with honesty while focusing on the human factor.
Shape the narrative of the work so that people could connect with the story, regardless of whether they know Rio de Janeiro, the Pacification, or any other topic like this. We can all understand what it is like to lose love, experience loneliness, pleasure, uprooting, pure happiness or irrational fear.
We all suffer the ups and downs of life. Those are universal themes.

The origin of the project was basically my tiredness of violence and, in part, of the photojournalism industry.
After 8 years of work I decided that I didn’t have to do a project about the Pacification, that if I wanted to be honest and free in the interpretation of that history, I had to make it completely personal.
For this reason, I decided to put together all my work, not only the “professional” stuff (coverage of the Olympics and the World Cup, the 2013 protests, the Pacification, the Pope’s visit or the Zika epidemic among many other topics), but also the more personal, and add my particular experiences.
Over time, all of this became a project that includes photos and texts, as well as videos, drawings or audiovisual material from all those years.

The images are also a testament to your ability to gain your subjects’ trust. How have you, throughout this project and your career in general, always managed to do so, to the point of being allowed to capture people’s most private and vulnerable moments?

Living in the places I photograph, spending time with the people and being 100% honest with them about what I’m doing.

World-renowned photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen , who chose your project as the winner of the URBAN Book Award 2023, explained his decision with these words: “It’s not easy to work in Rio de Janeiro, which can be very violent at times and as a photographer you can be vulnerable at those moments. That makes the work of Rafael special, his intimate and poetic images shows he is capable of winning the trust of people. […] He has developed a strong signature and therefore deserves the award.”
What was your reaction to his praise? And what have you found to be, indeed, the most challenging aspects of working in an environment as dangerous as Rio was in those years?

Kadir is a great photographer and I am very honored by his words.
For me the most difficult thing was having the patience to understand the timing and how things work there.
To let go of the idea of how things were supposed to be or how I wanted my work to develop and accept the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, and that the path itself would teach me the way step by step.
Learning to trust that intuition was, and still is, the most complicated thing sometimes.

You lived in Rio de Janeiro for 5 years. It was during this time that “Cafuné” was born: a project eight years in the making, counting from 2012 to the launch of the book at the Visa Pour L´Image festival in 2020. Can you share some insights into the challenges and rewards of working on such a long-term project, and how it evolved over that time?

When I went to live in Brazil, the Cafuné project did not yet exist, I went there to cover the Pacification of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro with the arrival of the World Cup and the Olympic Games and all the events that happened there within a margin of 5 years.
The only way I could stay there was to work day to day for the international press, news agencies, NGOs and editorial clients. Because of the nature of the City and the convulsed times, It was a fantastic and very hard experience at the same time, which is reflected in the book.
It was not until years later that the project, outside of a solely photojournalistic perspective, began to take shape.

As someone who knows the city inside out, what is your personal perspective on if and why Rio de Janeiro is, indeed, a Marvelous City?
And are there any aspects of the city and your experience in it that have influenced your photography the most?

I’m far from knowing the city like this. And even less so now that I no longer live there.
I remember living in Rio de Janeiro as one of the most formative experiences of my life. As a professional and as a person.
Rio is a very intense city where extremes are always present.
On a human level it changed me a lot to the point that, the more I thought I knew about the topic I covered, the more I realized how incomprehensible it was.
It was finally, when I accepted it and began to open myself to the life experience of living for a time in various favelas, or embracing the chaos that is experienced there at times and not judging what I lived from a “European” perspective, when peace, creativity and the possibilities began to flow.

You’re currently working on your next long-term project The Place of Stillness in Mexico City. How does your creative process differ in this new environment compared to your previous work in Rio de Janeiro?

The work I am doing right now in Mexico is totally different.
To begin with, I no longer work as a photojournalist covering daily news in Mexico as I did in Brazil.
The theme of this work, although it is also born from some editorial work, is mainly a documentary photography project focused on topics such as anthropology and spirituality.

The Place of Stillness refers to a poem included in the books of Chilam Balam (tales about the historical facts and circumstances of the Mayan civilization) and is a visual study of the purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art.
With the aim to better understand how people use certain experiences to transcend the prison of their bodies and achieve a different state of consciousness, I started to develop a dialogue between anthropology and art; mental health research and imagery.
The artistic research that resulted from this dialogue draws a map throughout this spiritual goal, in the search of forms of alternative perception; and that which is common to each and all of us: the gift of being alive and the possibility of evolving our own consciousness away from any kind of conditioning. This is the search for the space between one thought and another: the Place of Stillness.

You also have an upcoming project in Madrid. Can you give a little sneak peak into what it’s about? And how does it feel to go back to your homeland and explore these themes in the city where you grew up?

It is a totally personal story that still has many years to be completed.
“LIKE A SPACE INSIDE” is like a notebook map of my return to Spain in the midst of a global pandemic, after 13 years living abroad. Among the images of this story and the way they are interrelated, I seek to trace my roots exploring the environments in which I have lived and ended up distancing from over the years. This sort of “photo therapy” exercise comes from the need to talk about identity and sense of uprooting. About society, friends and family. About mental health, the epidemic or the passing of my father.
In a way I’m documenting this process, not to find a way back home, but to create a new place and see where I fit on it.

Finally, what advice would you give to young photographers (and filmmakers) who wish to start a career in documentary?

Diversify your efforts in different fields: your creative project does not have to be the one that feeds you, and vice versa.
Have one job to “fill the refrigerator” and another to “fill your soul”.
It is not easy to achieve both at the same time.

Thank you again for this journey of discovery into your work.
We wish you all the best of luck for all your future projects, and please feel free to keep us updated – we’d be delighted to hear about them!

For those who might be interested, here are the links to Rafael’s project “Cafuné” and its book:

– “CAFUNÉ” PROJECT: http://cafunebook.com/

– BUY “CAFUNÉ” BOOK: http://cafunebook.com/order-the-book/