© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

Tell us about your approach to photography in general. How did it all start? What are your memories of your first shots? How did it evolve from the early days?

Mico Toledo (MI): I don't really have a background in photography, so I cannot say I have one of those romantic origins stories about photographers, who at the tender age of 6 got their first camera and have been photographing ever since. I came to this game quite late in my thirties, with a project documenting the water protectors of Standing Rock. I had just bought a Hasselblad a month earlier and decided to go there to capture the photos of the amazing Native American protestors and activists fighting against a horrible oil pipeline, and then I never stopped from there really. I guess you can say before that I got pretty obsessed with documentary photography and started buying lots of books and being fascinated by this world, and thought I would someday do that. I remember when I first moved to London, around fourteen years ago I stumbled across a Stephen Shore book, American Surfaces, and that just blew my mind. I didn't know that world existed and I guess Shore is credited for putting me on this path.

What about your educational path? Did it have any impact on you? Any lessons learned?

MI: I am not really a big fan of Academia, although I have pursued now two master's degrees (one uncompleted in design at Central Saint Martins), which is crazy, because I do really hate being in a traditional school environment, and I respond much more to learning as I practice it, and I love getting really obsessed about something and making lots and lots of errors seems like my ideal learning modus operandi. Having said that, I have just graduated from the Hartford Photo MFA program and I have to say it was incredibly hard at first, I really struggled during the first year, but it eventually changed my life and the way I practice and think about photography. Although the Hartford MFA program is not traditional in any sense. I guess that's why I ended up liking it and embracing it more and more as the course progressed. I learned a lot about photography, but much more about myself. I'm also not very technical and I do believe it's much harder to learn how to find your voice, what questions are you asking as a photographer, and so on, rather than how to perfectly frame or meter a photograph. I have to say the course had an amazing impact on me, and I have to thank Robert Lyons, Irina Rozovski, Michael Vahrenwaldt, Alec Soth, and many other teachers at the course for pushing my work and my understanding of the practice and the medium. I would definitely not be the same artist as I am now without their guidance.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

What are the themes that interest you, and what generally attracts your observation?

MI: I am really interested in my fellow humans. I kind of have this obsession about slipping into people's lives, but I'm not really sure what this means. The writer Zadie Smith has a character in her book "NW" that says exactly the same thing, and I thought, how amazing that there's another person, even a fictional one, that feels the same as I do. But I think photographing people allows me to slip into another person's life for a while and see the world through another perspective, and there are so many different lives, even on the same street, I'm kind of obsessed about the endless possibilities and minutiae of life. My projects usually tend to focus on a human issue or a particular community. I photographed portraits of water defenders in Standing Rock, then I did a short project on a river community in the NorthEast of Brazil, for a self-published zine called Velho Chico, and my MFA Thesis focused on the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in East London. In a way every project is about myself, me trying to deal with my country's own past treatment of Indigenous people, my home in Brazil, and me trying to find my roots, and now a project about the migration of others, which in fact seems like another project about me trying to find a home and find solace and companionship in a community of migrants that are not English.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

From a methodological point of view, what is your approach to the medium? How do you envision or conceptualize the projects?

MI: My initial approach is very non-intellectual at first. I read a lot and projects just tend to hopefully appear and I grab whatever really seems interesting on a personal level to me. Whether that's aesthetic or conceptual.
I don't tend to overthink much when I'm photographing and only try to intellectualize later when I get the pictures developed and I start developing some sort of sequence or put them on the wall to see if something it's happening. There are a lot of near misses and false starts, you've got to get used to burning a lot of films until you find something that speaks truly to you. So I'd say there's not much preparation for a project except being opened to the world until something appears before me, and then I tend to read a lot about the issue, and photograph a lot, not in an analytical kind of way, but in a messy way that I want to absorb everything I can about the issue to feel the right things when photographing. For the "Islanders" project, which is now called "A Brighter Sun", by the way, I read a lot about the experience of Caribbean migrants, such as Sam Selvin's "Lonely Londoners", and V.S. Naipaul's "The Enigma of Arrival" and Clair Will's "Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War". All these books and others gave me a good background to help set the right psychological and intellectual state to photograph, but the rest is all intuition.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

Do you privilege any camera or process in particular? Tell us about your equipment ...

MI: Yes, I mainly use two cameras, a medium format Mamiya7 ii and a large format Chamonix 4x5.
I shoot a bit of color, but mainly black and white for this last long-term project. It's cumbersome, slow, and expensive to shoot on film these days. But I think it's essential to my practice and in how I engage with my subjects. I think it slows them down and it allows me to create a greater connection between me and my community and the folks I photograph.
The Mamiya is much more mobile but still hard to focus on and shoot lots of dynamic photographs. I tend to flip-flop between both cameras, depending on what film I have in my fridge.

Does research play any significant role in your practice?

MI: I'm not very research-based I have to say. I don't think my work is journalistic in any sense, as I tend to create fiction around an initial nugget of reality. So I read a lot about the subject I'm interested in photographing, or during the process, but I wouldn't call that necessarily research, but much more like an immersion into that particular world or issue.

Do you dialogue with other experts when developing your work?

MI: Yes, in my case I was very lucky as I was surrounded by a very strong committed cohort of photographers and fellow artists during the past 3 years of my MFA. I was extremely fortunate to share the process of the work right from the beginning and hear their feedback every three weeks as the work developed. Again, the guidance of my teachers, but maybe most importantly my cohort and fellow students was really important in the making of this body of work. I talk and share a lot, I'm Brazilian, so I can't help myself, so it was really important for me to be able to get out of my bubble and get feedback about what was working and what wasn't every step of the way.
That constant dialogue really helped work quickly on what worked or not and it was instrumental to finding the right paths and avenues to pursue. At the same time, I think it's important to know when to follow your own drum and be confident in your voice and what you want to say. I think it's also easy to get confused with too many voices and opinions, so my advice would be to develop a dialogue with other artists, but also trust yourself when in doubt, as it's ultimately your own unique voice and artistry that needs to come to the surface.

Tell us about the project "A Brighter Sun" selected for the Urbanautica Institute Awards. What is the motivation and the theme you addressed?

MI: The motivation for this project was a way for me to find a home and through landscape photography and portraiture search for other individuals that perhaps felt a similar sense of longing, estrangement, and belonging as I do. I explored themes of migration, home, and isolation, and felt it was fitting to document the exodus of a community of people in my neighborhood that migrated to England and were also not from here. I think the idea of settling in London after 14 years here and still feeling kind of lost was the initial spark that started this project. Me looking for a home and looking for kinship with others.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

What are the practical difficulties you faced in its development?

MI: A photo project is never a straightforward practice. Particularly for this project, getting involved with the local community takes time and commitment, and that took a lot of effort. The psychological involvement and energy spent in creating bonds and jumping in and out of people's lives takes a lot. It is very rewarding, but it's also very difficult. There are days that I just go out to photograph landscapes and still life because I don't feel I have enough energy or the right mind state to engage with people.
Every day it's a different practice I would say and you face different difficulties. The important thing as a friend always tells me is to "show up" and the work will flow. The worst thing you can do is give in to any difficulties and stay at home. Even a bad day of photographing is better than not photographing at all.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

From an editorial point of view, what choices guided you in the selection of the final portfolio?

MI: The photos I chose for the final portfolio really spoke to me in different ways. The selection in a way was very simple and straightforward as I can feel the gravitational pull of some images that I'm drawn to and I feel other people will hopefully be too. Whether that's a gaze of a person I photograph or the subtle message of an understated landscape, I chose the images that really spoke to me for the final portfolio. I have around 50 photos for the final project, and I'm still developing some work, but I always go back to these 10-15 photos that I submitted. I see it like a band with their greatest hits, an album can have 12 good songs, but only 3 or 4 are truly great, I feel this selection represents a lot of hard work but also the stars aligning to give me something back. I feel their energy, presence, and force, and they speak beyond the frame I hope.

How does this work fit in your identity statement as a photographer and if relates to your previous works?

MI: I spoke about this in a previous question. I believe we always make work about similar things or a similar theme. For me it always comes back to community, finding a home, and belonging. One way or another, in all of my projects so far I try to find a place for myself in the world. And "A Brighter Sun" is just another iteration of that, albeit a first long-term attempt that allowed me to dive deeper into myself and the community I'm embedded in.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

The scenario in which photography is presented and discussed has changed considerably in recent years with the spread of ICT and the digital world. How do you relate to social networks and this expanded field of photography?

MI: I have to admit I'm not really super engaged in social media. I don't have Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. My only social tool to disseminate and discuss photography is via Instagram and Whatsapp groups with photo friends. I know Instagram gets a lot of heat by changing the algorithms every month and focusing more and more on video content to compete with TikTok, but I honestly think Instagram is playing a pivotal role in demonstrating the power of photography to a wider audience, and it's great to see projects like The Humid or MackBooks, and Virtual Assembly disseminate great content and conversations around photography. I think it's all due to their hard work more than Instagram, but I do believe it's a powerful tool if used in the right way. I feel as a working artist Instagram could be detrimental to your practice if you're constantly on it, posting and checking other people's work, so I tend to be on and off quite a lot, but I think if you have a finished project to share and to market, it's an interesting tool that can be really targeted to your audience. I also have to add that Photo podcasts are an amazing tool for the dissemination and discussions of photography. I'm quite obsessed with Gem Fletcher's "The Messy Truth Podcast", it's always so enlightening to hear about other photographers' practices and how they deal with their own difficulties and their processes.

It's not easy to pursue the authorial path, it requires time, energy, and resources. What strategies do you adopt?

MI: I think you need a lot of self-belief and resilience, as well as a really clear image in your head of what kind of images you want to produce. What do you want to say? I think we're so unique, each and every one of us. The combinations to put us here where we are, are kind of crazy if you think about it. If you think that I'm Brazilian, I lived in Portugal, and now live in the United Kingdom, that my grandfather used to sell bibles in the countryside of São Paulo, that my great grandparents migrated from Italy to Brazil, it's all kind of surreal and all so messy, but I think this cornucopia of experiences created a whole universe in my brain that's only mine. Added to that are all the books and photos, and films we've seen. I believe we all have the power to find that authorial path, we're all a combination of a million other things, and if we're able to shut down the noise and listen to what our heartbeat is telling you, I think anyone can find their voice. But yes, it requires lots of time, money, and energy, that's for sure. You lose a lot of time with friends and family because photography is essentially a lonely practice. You spend time with strangers, but not so much with the people you know, unless your project is about your family. I tend to photograph all the time, and although I have a big collection of photo books I tend not to look too much at other people's work these days. If I get a new book I look at it once, and other times I only open the book a few months later not to confuse my own vision of what I want to do and what I have in my head.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

Are any interesting books that you recommend and that recently inspired you and why?

MI: Right now I'm reading a design book called "Caps Lock: How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and How to Escape from It". It's a super interesting book that links design with the history of capitalism, from the first designed Roman coins, to maps designed during the first colonial expeditions, and shows how graphic design and capitalism are inextricably linked, and questions if it's possible to be an ethical designer in a capitalistic world. The book made immediately some parallels with photography, especially thinking that the first cameras were first used by European colonialists in Africa whilst documenting occupied peoples, and how a capitalist world today without photos, wouldn't be as powerful. So the book made me think a lot about my own practices as a designer and a photographer at the same time, although I don't shoot commercially I'm part of a bigger industry that it's somehow hard to escape from. The other book I'm reading right now is Ocean Vuong's "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous". Funny enough the book is set in Hartford where I did my MFA. It's the account of a Vietnamese immigrant to his mother who cannot read. It's really beautiful and tender and speaks of people caught between two worlds, and I see a lot of myself in it.

How important it is to showcase your work. What about exhibitions or other forms? Any tips or experiences to share?

MI: I think that fifty percent of the work is about sharing it and putting up shows and hustling to put the work out there in the world in physical form. It takes a lot of work and energy, and money, but it's worth it. I had my first real show now in the US for my Thesis graduation and it was a really amazing experience. Now our Hartford cohort is really good at moving the show around, so we're planning several shows next year in the US, London, and hopefully Tokyo too. I'd say focus on your project first, photograph nonstop, but whenever you're done, focus on sharing the work and putting up shows whenever you can. Now, what I'd say is don't expect that big white cube gallery to get in touch, set up your own collective, rent an unused store on your street, do a show in a garage, put it up on walls like fly posters, there are many non-traditional ways to show your work, and I think it's important to do it but to also challenge the idea that a show has to be put in a gallery with white walls. I really like zines and newsprint, and any printed form. It's a cheap way to put work out in the hands of people and also see your work outside a computer screen.

Who or what does influence your work in particular? Is there any contemporary artist, photographer, or writer you'd like to quote or mention?

MI: I am absolutely in love with painters Kerry James Marshall,  Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Henry Taylor. They all influence me a lot in terms of blending fact with fiction and creating a world of my own based on reality that drifts slightly into the surreal and dreamy. I also love Zadie Smith, Tommy Orange, Colson Whitehead, Jorge Amado, Don Delillo... I don't know, the writer's list is long and super diverse.

© Mico Toledo from the series "A Brighter Sun"

How do you see the future of photography evolving? And Anything else you wish to add that was not covered here...

MI: This is a tricky question. I'm not sure I have the answer. It's like betting on a crypto coin, every year it changes so rapidly that there's no chance anyone knows where it's going. I mean, I still photograph in large format film, so I'm not sure if I'm the right harbinger for things to come, but I think there are more people photographing, and more voices. I feel like the past was essentially dominated by white cisgender male voices, and I think that's definitely changing. It's amazing to see Latinx photographers, transgender folks, and LGBTQ photographers out in the limelight for incredible work. So I hope more of that comes to light.
Right now I'm editing and creative directing a photography magazine with 40 photographers from Brazil called Quilo. It's a way for me to add new photographic voices to a canon that for the great part was dominated by American and European photographers. So I hope the fragmentation of the medium and the immediacy and democratization of technology will keep bringing more people in and that's great.

© Quilo. Journal of Photographic Tales from Brazil (cover)

© Quilo. Journal of Photographic Tales from Brazil (interior)

© Quilo. Journal of Photographic Tales from Brazil (interior)

And do you have any projects in the pipeline? Or topics you would like to address?

MI: I'm still working on my current project. I'm not done yet. I still haven't got the feeling that I'm bored or tired of photographing my community here in Hackney. There are a lot of corners and nooks to explore and worlds still to enter, so I think I'll keep doing this for a while. In the future, I'm sure I'll do a big project in Brazil in the next few years after I'm done with this. It is my home, and I still have to unpack a lot of stories and psychological energies stored in my own country. I think that's all I have to say for now.

Mico Toledo (website)