Daniel Jack Lyons: Trust the Wind

The Earth’s lungs are in peril. With Brazil under the control of Jair Bolsonaro and his right-wing regime, illegal mining and agricultural expansion in the Amazon have recently contributed to catastrophic fires. While some image-makers captured dramatic aerial views of the spectacle of smoke and fire, Daniel Jack Lyons, a Los Angeles-based photographer who has spent much of his career focusing on the lives of youth subcultures-often in marginalized communities-was drawn to the largely unseen lives of young Indigenous people in the region.

A Portuguese speaker and trained anthropologist who had previously worked in Brazil, Lyons teamed up with a local community organizer based in a remote location in the Amazon and set out on a series of intimate portraits, realized in his characteristic soft, earthy palette. His photographs offer an individualized take on Indigenous communities in the region: his subjects are drag queens, queer people, skateboarders, teenage lovers, heavy-metal fans, and farmers. I wanted to document the banality of everyday life and the rebellious creativity it inspires, Lyons says. This universal impulse to express and affirm one’s individuality is resilient but at risk from a toxic mix of environmental degradation, violence, and discrimination. As another generation passes through the quotidian rites and rituals of adolescence, what sort of world will they inhabit and how much autonomy will they have over it?
The book will include an introduction by model and environmental activist Gisele Bundchen, with other contributions from environmental scientists such as Antonio Nobre.