Where did your journey start? Please trace your early timeline. Background, first years, school days?
I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1972. I was the last of four children born into a family with a humble background. My family’s economic situation improved as I grew, especially because my parents’ hard work allowed us, their children, to achieve more in life.
Edimilson Ferreira
In the end, I have to say I was lucky to be the youngest child because I was able to study a foreign language and go to university mostly with the help of my older sister, who has always supported me. I was the first one in my family to get a university degree. I remember a neighbor came to me and congratulated me after hearing I had been admitted to university. That’s because the area were we lived in Rio de Janeiro was nothing like Copacabana or Ipanema, the nice tourist neighborhoods of the city, where the privileged people live (except for the ones in the favelas). The neighborhood I grew up in was a poor area and actually one of the most dangerous parts of the city.
I went to public school and to public university. Education standards were not good, so most of what I learned, I learned
on my own. I have always been very curious and have always enjoyed reading and learning. But I cannot stress enough the fact that the efforts of my parents and my siblings put me in a privileged situation where I could devote time to reading and discovering. Most of my relatives were not so lucky. I mean, I have never been rich or even high class or anything, but compared to a large part of the world population, I cannot complain.
Many years in Brazil, but much of your photography is from central Europe, and your site lists your current residence as Armenia. How did all of that happen?
I left Brazil (hopefully for good) in 2012. The chance to leave was given me when I was awarded a scholarship from Goethe Institut, where I studied German, and I had the opportunity to spend three months in Berlin, where I finished the German language course. In Berlin, I met a young Russian woman with whom I started a relationship. After our time in Berlin and many months of a virtual relationship and occasionally visiting each other in Rio and in Moscow, we decided to quit our jobs and move to Germany, where she became a student. The job I quit was my job as a civil servant, which I had for 10 years. In 2012, I also became a student at a German university. My dream was to stay in Germany because I really enjoyed life there. Germany is where I was able to photograph freely for the first time. In Rio de Janeiro, I could not do it because criminality levels are so high that people are mugged and murdered for a pair of shoes. I am not exaggerating when I say this. I rarely dared to carry a camera around while living in Brazil and that is why I didn’t photograph much there.
Be that as it may, staying in Germany proved impossible because the German authorities refused to allow me to stay there as a freelancer and I didn’t want to have a traditional office job, even
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