Maurício Soares is a doctor, and this is not without significance in his choice of subject matter for his photography, nor in his approach to photography. He deals with the lives of animals in their natural context, knowing that, just like humans, a body or behaviour can only be explained by taking into account the context of life. That is why he travels, travels a great deal, covering thousands of kilometres for planned encounters, guided by the arrivals, the departures of animals and so many other rhythms of each species’ life cycle.

From his vast portfolio of work, we have chosen to focus on birds, which so well convey the tension between freedom and vulnerability, creatures that know no borders, which traverse skies that are increasingly less neutral. These birds portrayed engage, as a tribute, with the “Birds of Palestine” on display in the neighbouring gallery, the work of six Palestinian photographers who know all too well the difficulty of conjugating the verbs to survive, to hold one’s ground, to live with basic dignity, to imagine the future.

Maurício is as interested in the tiny frog as he is in the majestic elephant or the mythical tiger, because they are all characters in the grand stage that is nature. He is not drawn to spectacle, but to the moment when life manifests itself, the moment when unstable equilibrium decides between loss and conquest. That is why all his photographs convey breaths of life.

We live in a world dominated by great tension between human beings, territory and nature. Observing, recording, sharing is a form of care. The artist observes without dominating; his hunt is for the moment, for the suspension of time to record, to capture snippets of life.

Without words, Maurício Soares brings the whisper of the animal world in the form of images that send out warning signals.

We must listen, we must tell the story!

Curated by: Manuela Matos Monteiro

“JOURNEYS WITH LIGHT AND SILENCE” | VIDEO

From among the thousands of images, we have selected over 100 to be projected on large screen. We begin with a butterfly, from the Greek psyché, a term that also denotes the soul, the breath of life. The butterfly represents transience,

the fragility of life, lightness. We end with the elephant, not to move from small to large, from light to heavy, from the least important to the most decisive on a hierarchical scale that Maurício Soares does not subscribe to.

In this video, we wanted to convey that what matters to the photographer is to capture in his work all expressions of animal life because all are crucial to the planet’s balance and all are at risk.

Credits

MIRA Galerias | MIRA FORUM

Directed by Manuela Matos Monteiro and João Lafuente

Communications: Manuela Matos Monteiro and Beatriz Vital

Assistant: Beatriz Vital

Maurício Soares was born in Porto; he is a doctor by profession and has been passionate about photography since his late teens. He is self-taught but has always valued

his training, attending workshops with various photographers: António Sá,

Luís Quinta Greg Basco, Doug Brown, Keith Bauer, Bence Mate and Matt Shetzer.

Wildlife is the area that unquestionably defines his work, which has also led him to become a traveller who has explored our country, Europe and other

destinations on other continents. He has had many works published in

prestigious specialist magazines such as National Geographic (Portugal), Wildlife

Photographic and Wildlife Photography World. He has participated in exhibitions at

photography festivals and galleries with his work.

The author sees wildlife photography not merely as an aesthetic expression but,

above all, as a means of raising public awareness of the preservation of nature