Johnny Miller Photography

Background: I traveled through Brazil in 2022, interviewing, photographing and trying to understand the dynamics of the organizations and people who are fighting against inequality in that country through various lenses. These photographs were eventually presented at the launch of the new LSE reserach theme “The Politics of Inequality” in London in July 2022. I experimented with 3D modeling, augmented reality, video and photo to bring this topic to life.

Key Partners: London School of Economics, Atlantic Fellows

Brazilian society, while fragmented and highly stratified in certain contexts, is also full of solidarity. There is no way to discuss inequality in cities, for example, without taking into context the teeming multitudes of rich and poor on the beaches of Rio, or the confounding cosmopolitanism of the pixação-covered streets of central São Paulo, or the reverent joy in Afro-Brazilian culture in Salvador. Perhaps most inspiring to me is the power in how Brazilians politically organize, not in a distant way (by only voting at national elections, for example) but in the small communities of occupied buildings, within rural indigenous communities, among self-organized subcultures of influencers on Tik Tok and Instagram, and in the vast peripheral areas of major cities. Black, Indigenous, and migrant groups have found power, real power, in organizing around common principles, and in their almost unanimous disdain of the right-wing government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Representations of inequality tend to showcase poverty, suffering, and the plight of survival amongst disadvantaged populations. Resistance Doesn’t Walk Alone inverts this gaze by focusing on collective organising, solidarity, and protest. In doing so, the series shows how people in Brazil act in opposition to larger forces of inequality. Johnny Miller’s aerial images take the macro point of view where spatial and structural inequalities are expressed. These are coupled with portraits of those who experience marginalisation on a daily basis, and yet they resist, they persist. Miller insists on a particular perspective by stylising the images in terms of colour and composition, reminding the viewer that they are looking at something that is manipulated through a lens. These techniques are a subtle reminder that there is only so much lived inequality that outsiders can know. The series is a meaningful glimpse into the diversity of experiences across Brazil, presenting a multiplicity of strategies that people create to combat inequality.

Kara Blackmore, Curator, London School of Economics, 2022

The Politics of Inequality research theme is co-hosted by LSE’s Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and LSE International Inequalities Institute. It examines practices of resistance, contestation, solidarity, and everyday actions against social and economic inequalities. Through this research, we consider the experiences, the power, and the agency of people to adapt, challenge, and mobilise. The series of photographs for the exhibition, Resistance Doesn’t Walk Alone, by the Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Johnny Miller,

is a project that is hosted as a part of this research theme. These photographs are a striking visual representation of both the experiences of people and communities across Brazil and an illustration of how inequalities are inscribed on and manifested in urban spaces and natural landscapes. This exhibition, which we are delighted to host at LSE, takes us on a journey through Brazil, sharing the stories and giving us a glimpse into the lives of people living in an unequal country.

Armine Ishkanian, Director of the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics, 2022