Bio

Maria Luisa is a brazilian photographer whose work bridges the poetic and the documentary, the personal and the universal. her debut book, Caatinga is a visual and emotional journey through the arid landscapes of northeast Brazil, an intimate exploration of a region, a country and herself. With rare sensibility, Maria Luisa transforms the harshness of the sertão into lyrical images that illuminate the resilience and grace of life in the Caatinga biome. Photography was, from the beginning, a form of inheritance. Her earliest memories are filtered through the metallic clicks of her father's amateur camera, a man who took a photo every day, capturing the ordinary with reverence. inspired by this daily ritual, Maria Luisa followed his path, first quietly from behind him, then with her own lens. What began as emulation grew into a vocation As an a artist, she committed to the same promise her father had made: one photo a day. Whether of children playing, a fruit on the ground, a silent tree in a urban street, or an old man waiting in the shade. Maria Luisa's lens seeks the ephemeral and the essencial, the mundane elevated to memory. In caatinga, this lifelong sensibility crystallizes. The book is the result of immersive expedition through the semi-arid hinterlands of Piauí, marked by extreme heat, scarce water, and people of immense warmth. In clay and wattle homes, Maria Luisa was welcomed like family. Her camera bore witness to the beauty and precarity of a biome overlooked. Children became dancer in improvised ballets at dusk, elders sang chants etched into the dry wind. She did not go as a tourist, but as a listener, a participant. The result is a photographic narrative steeped in humility, respect and love Maria Luisa Kirsten is not simply a photographer of places, she is a chronicler of presences. Her images do not document, they evoke. And in doing so, they ask us to pause, to feel, to remember. Caatinga is her first book. It will not be her last