Carandiru

Scenes of a huddle of people in inhumane conditions inside a cell usually populate the collective imaginary when the subject is a prison in Brazil or Latin America. This is especially true in the case of the “Casa de Detenção de São Paulo” (House of Detention of São Paulo), popularly known as Carandiru.

On October 2nd, 1992, this icon of a precarious prison system was the scene of a merciless slaughter, which resulted in the death of 111 inmates. The Massacre of Carandiru, as the tragedy became known, drew such intense national and international attention that, in 2002, it ended up being deactivated and later demolished. Its history, known worldwide, gave rise to books, films, and series. However, more than 25 years after the incident, the case of the massacre—along with the tragic situation of the Brazilian prison system and that of many others in the world—remains far from having a solution.

Between 2004 and 2005, I visited the place in order to photograph it. At that time, the prison had already been deactivated, and the various pavilions were in different situations: some were in the process of demolition; others were occupied and used by the production teams responsible for the filming of the movie and series; and others were simply abandoned and untouched. Reality and fiction blurred between the scenography that sought to reproduce the particularities of each person and the actual marks carved in every corner.

The jail — its ethos, rules, and intimacy — reveals itself through emptiness. Contrary to the basic connotation of overcrowding, the absence of the human figure in the photographs symbolizes only a corporeal absence, a figurative one, since the vestiges of those individuals are pressed into the space and manifest themselves in other ways. The loneliness that prevails in an overcrowded prison can be the same that inhabits this abandoned place. The traces found in the details carry the personality and memory of those who have been there, whether for a short period, for practically a lifetime, or of those who never left.