A composição da paisagem urbana de Ponta Grossa-PR nas fotografias do acervo Foto Elite

Abstract

This dissertation approaches the composition of the urban landscape of Ponta Grossa through the iconography of Domingos Silva Souza. Its main goal is to investigate the transformation and the permanence of urban elements that are significant to the population of Ponta Grossa as marks that characterize its landscape. The context of this discussion is based on the narratives of followers of the Foto Elite page on Facebook, regarding the city's visibility through the divulgation of photographs produced by the photography company Foto Elite over its 64 years of activity. The study also points out methods to analyze the relationship between landscape and photograph scientifically. The methodology is based on works of urban landscape monitoring and it involves interviews with the photographer responsible for the production of the Foto Elite image collection, in addition to investigations and interpretations of the followers' reactions on Facebook. These observations are related to interpretations of content analysis according to Bardin (1979) and to the visible aspect of the landscape as a form of geographical thought. As the result, we found that the urban landscape of Ponta Grossa can be comprehended as a configuration of multiple texts related to the interpretation of urban symbols, analyzed through four fundamental dimensions: the photographic act of Domingos and his journeys through space and time in the city; the availability of an intentional image collection on Facebook; the possible meanings conveyed, “shared”, and “liked” by the followers of the Foto Elite page about the photographs available online; and the theoretical-methodological resources employed in the symbolic interpretation of the urban landscape, which resulted from our intellectual choices based on recent publications (BESSE, 2014; COLLOT, 2013; GOMES, 2013) on the manifestations and representations of the landscape, considering the aspects of perception, sight and memory of individuals that took part in this research. The emphasis on the symbolism of the landscape meets the perspective of identity, in the degree that the landscape is seen and linked to significant aspects attributed by its subjects, creating a dimension of emblematic identity based on their ideals. Thus, we observed that the urban landscape of Ponta Grossa was constructed over time in a process determined by the wishes of its inhabitants, recognizing grandiose projections as a way to strengthen a feeling of cosmopolitanism, while manifesting an intense paradox regarding the desire for progress and the feelings of nostalgia, aiming to have the city of Ponta Grossa as a protagonist in history.