One last picture

Published at Viva Favela

According to the latest data issued by Brazil’s Ministry of Health, an average 6737 deaths per year were caused by firearms in Rio de Janeiro between 1996 and 2006. A number of families constantly huddled at the gates of the Coroner’s office in Rio, the Instituto Medico Legal (IML), called the attention of French photographer Aude Chevalier-Beaumel, who decided to get to know their stories from up close.

Chevalier-Beaumel’s work is now an exhibition entitled “P.A.F. – Perfuração por Arma de Fogo” (or ‘Firearm related deaths’, loosely translated) and it brings to the general public the stories of twelve families that suffered the loss of children, siblings, and uncles to guns.

It all began with a chance encounter. Chevalier-Beaumel had found a postcard among her grandmother’s belongings depicting a child laid out on a bed, a child that had died at age 9. The postcard had been sent to distant relatives to inform them of the death in the family.

“Up until the 1950’s the tradition was still being observed in the interior of France. It was common for families to hire a photographer to take a last picture of a dead relative. I decided to take this idea to Rio, to photograph victims of gun violence and try and recover the stories of these people,” said Aude.

The first to receive Aude Chevalier-Beaumel was Ademir Wellington de Oliveria’s family. Dead at age 20, his family says he was killed because he knew too much. He was executed, his back riddled with bullets, at the entrance to the Morro da Chacrinha, in Rio’s Tijuca neighborhood, for having witnessed a supermarket robbery.

“I used to go by the Coroner’s office every day, because I live in downtown Rio. And there were all these families outside, waiting for permission to take away the bodies of their loved ones. I decided to approach one of the families and ask for permission to photograph the burial,” said Chevalier-Beaumel.

Chevalier-Beaumel followed the daily life of police officers and forensic scientists at the Coroner’s office for three months. She got to know the complications that families must face in order to take back the bodies of their loved ones, and the pain they feel. Taken from death certificates, the term used to describe the cause of death “Perfuração por Arma de Fogo”, (literally “perforation by firearm”) became the title of the exhibition.

Twenty families told photographer their stories

The victims’ families told Chevalier-Beaumel that the police often took bodies away from crime scenes to hinder investigations. “I wanted to tell stories like these through photographs, and to contrast these accounts with what the media tells us, a media that is only interested in the police version of events,” said Chevalier-Beaumel.

The first obstacle that Chevalier-Beaumel had to face, even having been given family consent, was the delays in freeing bodies. “Often the family would tell me I could be present at a burial, but lack of a national identification card meant delays in identifying the body and authorization for burial. For some that meant the casket had to be shut tight because the bodies had begun decomposing.

The hardest part, for Chevalier-Beaumel, was when it was time to close the coffin. “People linger until it is unbearable. In Ademir’s case, for example, his parents, his brother, and his girlfriend were there, she stroked his face and kissed him.”

Photoexhibits mimic caskets

The exhibition was set up so that visitors looking at the photographs feel as if they are peering into coffins. “It is the most painful part in the cemetery chapels, when the only step left to take is to bury the victim. I wanted to help people experience a bit of what families feel.

Of the twenty cases that Chevalier-Beaumel followed, only two involved female victims. The majority therefore, were of men and youths who lived in lower income areas. According to 2008 data on youths in Latin America by Mapa da Violência, Brazil ranks fifth in the region with an average 51.6 homicides for every hundred thousand inhabitants.

Chevalier-Beaumel was most struck by two cases she followed in which victims had been executed. “The most painful stories for me were the two accounts of executions, one by police officers, and the other by drug traffickers. When someone is killed by a stray bullet, it creates more of a stir, but when an execution takes place it implies in approval by certain segments of society,” said Chevalier-Beaumel.

I wanted to give them a name and to tell their stories. The families authorized me to be present at the burials because they want to redress injustice. It does not matter to me if the person who died was a drug trafficker, no one should be executed.” The photographer plans to make these stories into a documentary, to reach a wider audience. “I believe that people will pay more attention to a movie about the real lives of these people,” Chevalier-Beaumel adds.

P.A.F – Perfuração por Arma de Fogo opened March 4th at the Centro Cultural Justiça Federal, in Rio de Janeiro.

Cover Photograph by Rodrigues Moura

Translation by Lis Horta Moriconi

Watch a video on "P.A.F Perforação por arma de fogo" (In Portuguese)