Lara Jacinto is a photographer based in Porto, Portugal. Graduated in Design, studied photography at Portuguese Institute of Photography. She works as an independent photographer, focused in documentary projects. Since 2011, Lara has developed reportages for the most important Portuguese newspapers and magazines, as Público, Expresso or Visão.
She is also involved in collective documental photography projects, like the recently published ProjectoTroika, about Portuguese crisis. Lara Jacinto’s work has been subject of solo and group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad.
Nelson, 94 years old, saw eight of his nine sons leaving the village to look for better opportunities. In Trás-os-Montes the population aging rate is very high.
Located in the inner north of Portugal, Trás-os-Montes region has been forgotten and neglected for a long time and is currently one of the poorest regions of the country.
Its landscape is marked by the abandonment of the lands, villages and factories, ruins which evoke memories of better times, job opportunities, more people and children.
The economical crisis sweeping the country aggravated long term problems subsisting in this territory, such as the destruction of railroads and insufficient access to healthcare and education, thus driving the population into increasingly fragile conditions. Life here seems overshadowed by loneliness, apathy, emptiness, hopelessness anduncertainty regarding the future.
When confronted with the difficulties of the hard rural life, most young people dream about leaving the region and country. Those who stay, face the monotony and days that repeat themselves over and over again.
Luisa, Bruna’s mother, cries after say goodbye of her daughter who left for abroad
Bruna left school when she was sixteen, which prevented her to fulfill the dream of being a police woman. Today, she is 26 years old, and once more she is leaving Portugal for another work season in Switzerland.
Sandra has four children. The subsistence of the six-person household requires Sandra and her husband to make extreme daily efforts. In case of long term unemployment, their greatest worry is getting food and medication for their youngest daughter.
Young people of Cachão have no job, nor hope to get one. Many of them try their luck in countries like France or Switzerland, mostly working in seasonal agriculture, saving their paychecks, which allows them to survive through the rest of the year.
Bruna left school when she was sixteen, which prevented her to fulfill the dream of being a police woman. Today, she is 26 years old, and once more she is leaving Portugal for another work season in Switzerland.
Ana Silva has 20 years old, and she is already resigned to her life style.
She lives alone in a borrowed house. She accepts any kind of job.
She earns just enough money for her basics needs. Low cash flow makes travelling out of the region a lost dream.
In Cachão, a small village located at Trás-os-Montes, there is silence and monotony. The agro industrial complex, created in 60th, employed hundreds of people. Since 1974 the project has been increasingly abandoned, and officially closed in 1992. The big industrial complex, which was the great strength behind the economy in Trás-os-Montes, is now reduced to ruins of imposing buildings and practically a ghost village.
To view more of Lara’s work, please visit her website.