Sport lovers are counting down to this year's Football World Cup in Brazil, but what is the South American nation like beyond its famous obsession with football?
It is a question documentary photographer Nicola Dracoulis hopes to try and answer in her upcoming exhibition at the Gaffa Creative Precinct in Sydney that is part of the Head On Photo Festival. The exhibition's title, Living in the Middle of the Noise, comes from a song written by one of the subjects from this documentary project set in the sprawling Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
It charts the life of young people growing up in a world of poverty and inequality amid the sounds of gunshots and drums. In 2006, Melbourne and London based Dracoulis photographed nine young people from four slum districts in Rio. Seven years later she returned to discover what their lives are like today.
She reveals the different stories of every subject, some with dramatic events in their lives, others undergoing more peaceful rites of passage.
Overall Dracoulis seeks to capture the massive social and economic change and the rumblings of unrest.
The exhibition runs from 29 May to 9 June at Gaffa Creative Precinct, 281 Clarence Street, Sydney. Opening hours are 10am-6pm, Monday to Friday, and 11am-5pm, weekends. It is closed on public holidays.
Photo by Nicola Dracoulis.
