Featuring the first color photographs of Brazil and an entire continent in turmoil at the beginning of the last century, this album reveals a little-known collection of the Albert-Kahn departmental museum through a selection of autochromes and stereoscopic plates taken in 1909, during an enigmatic trip to South America. Escorted by interpreting researchers, the images, which had long remained silent, find a voice.

The image notebook retraces the transatlantic journey of the philanthropic banker. True photographic archives, these images bear witness to life on board crowded liners which reflect the conditions of emigration at the beginning of the 20th century, urban centers with architecture inspired by European capitals, flourishing economic exchanges or more simply daily life.

The investigation notebook accompanies and documents the iconographic selection of the travel notebook. It invites the reader to follow the investigation carried out by documentalists, historians, collections and exhibition managers, semiologists and photographers in order to identify and better understand the framework for creating the photographs. In this notebook combining historical perspectives and image analyses, the reader is also invited to investigate and go in search of these young South American nations.

Serge Fouchard, Aline Muller, Clément Poché, Pauline Raquillet, Laurent Vidal