In a city as segregated as Rio de Janeiro, the old proverb 'Tell me who you walk with and I'll tell you who you are', could be updated to 'Tell me which beach you go to and I'll tell you who you are'. Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon, the three world-famous ocean beaches, are a source of pride for the southern part of the city. This part of Rio accounts for less than 10% of the city's total area and is where the richest group of residents, around one million people, live. Almost all the photographs you'll have seen of Rio's beaches are of here.

Between 2009 and 2012, the photographer Julio Bittencourt documented the less sugar-coated, more real side of Rio's beaches. The Piscinao de Ramos opened in 2001 as a massive, artificial beach project created by the broadcaster, and then-state governor, Anthony Garotinho. It was a huge artificial tank of clean, salt water, built on the edge of the muddy and polluted Guanabara Bay which runs around the north of the city, aimed at the 2.7 million residents of this part of the city.

Over a period of four years, Bittencourt spent his summers at the beach trying to capture its soul. He travelled north every day, accompanied by a musician who served as both guide and guarantor of safe passage in an area controlled by the trafficking militia. After a while, the photographer rented a small room right next to the beach and started spending weekends and holidays there, photographing only during the sun's peak hours.

His photographs reinforce the density of people and suffocating heat. Classic composition portraits alternate with close-up images and dramatic shots that chop off heads and limbs, focusing on curves, hair and pores drenched in sweat, tanning lotion and hydrogen peroxide to bleach body hair, of the mainly black population. 

The sun reflects on skin and water, covers bodies as if bronze statues were washing themselves. Sexuality oozes from bikinis and swimsuits, and the scarcity of cloth is made up for by the abundance of food. Even shells and pebbles have to fight for a place in the sun amidst straws, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. Like all good beaches, from Weegee's Coney Island to Martin Parr's The Last Resort, competition for space and the indolence brought on by the heat creates scenes that are equally exquisite as humorous.

If Parr's bathers look bored and alienated, Bittencourt's subjects are strident and restless, caught in the act, with a baroque, almost Caravaggian play of light. You can smell the people and feel them breathing. Instead of Rio de Janeiro's elegant modernism and bossa nova, we are struck by human warmth and informality in a blend of pleasure and resilience that perfectly captures the 'purgatory of beauty and chaos' of the famous hip hop song Rio 40 Graus. 

This text is an excerpt of an article written by Thyago Nuguiera about Julio Bittencourt's project Ramos, originally published in Foam Magazine 50, Water, in 2018.

JULIO BITTENCOURT was born in Brazil and grew up between Sao Paulo and New York. Through photography, video and installations, his projects explore themes of urban life, identity and the social issues derived from the relationships between people and their environment.His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums in severalcountries and his work published in magazines such as LFI, Foam Magazine, GEO, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Courrier International, The British Journal of Photography, Polka Magazine, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Esquire, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times and C Photo, among others. Bittencourt is the author of three books: In a window of Prestes Maia 911 Building, Ramos and Dead Sea. He currently lives in Paris and is represented by Galeria Lume in São Paulo and Galeria da Gávea in Rio de Janeiro. 

THYAGO NOGUEIRA is a curator and editor of ZUM Magazine. He is the head of the Contemporary Photography Department at Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil. Nogueira has curated exhibitions and edited catalogues of William Eggleston —The American Colour, Claudia Andujar —In the Place of Other and Mauro Restiffe —Beyond Reach. He has published work of Julio Bittencourt in the first issue of ZUM in 2011.