O fotógrafo Lambe-Lambe: guardião da memória e cronista visual de uma comunidade

Abstract

Working on the streets, squares, parks and public gardens of Brazilian cities throughout the twentieth century, the photographer Lambe-Lambe can be considered an important agent responsible for democratisation and popularization of portrait photography among the less privileged classes of our society, producing a visual documentation that preserves and transmits the collective memory of family and community groups. This work examines the social uses of the images produced by these professionals, and reflects on the social role of photographers Lambe-Lambes, representatives of a professional practice that was recorded as intangible cultural heritage of the Rio de Janeiro city. In that sense, the focus of approach was structured on three issues: the inter-relationship between photography and memory, the possibilities of criticism and epistemological approaches between the portraits of family and pictures of Lambe-Lambes, and the participation of the anthropological field in the definition of public policies of preservation and safeguarding of cultural heritage.