This zine is, first of all, a personal work, starting from a discomfort about the representation and the look towards the Northeast region of Brazil, and towards the people who live here.

“The sertanejo is, above all, strong… with the sad appearance of a weakened invalid” With this sentence Euclides da Cunha opens the chapter on the “sertanejo” in his book “Os Sertões”.

The central idea of ​​the project was to translate and play with the contrast in the form of materials and writing, bringing the lightness of an almost illegible typography, in contrast with the robustness of a condensed text block, occupying the center of the page in a very hard and rigid way. The idea was also to bring contrast in the materials, printing some of the pages on very thin paper, and tearing them apart at times, to cover or fit in the following pages.

The work was essentially printed in red – a color inspired by the cliffs, rusty or reddish stones that are very common in northeastern Brazil. (all photos are from travel and personal files). The image of the stone very well illustrates the idea of ​​something seen and described at first as grotesque and ugly, but when seen up close it is clear that they are forms of grains, and countless layers of other materials.

In the process, scraps of paper were used to create the main letterings and enhance the idea of ​​denial with this vision of the northeastern.