Kátia Mesel

The Feira da Sulanca still exists as a famous market in Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil, that sells and exports items for the national clothing industry. While these markets were once an unfriendly place for women, who were struggling to make a living, Katia Mesel’s ‘Sulanca’ documents the economic revolution of the women of Santa Cruz do Capibaribe: seamstresses who, through collaboration and willpower, managed to make lives for themselves and change the socioeconomic landscape of Brazil’s most neglected region.