Teratogeny

Abstract

For many years, whenever I travel the roads of Rio Grande do Sul, I feel a sense of sorrow at the absence of fireflies. The presence of these glowing little creatures left a deep mark on my childhood; seeing them in the roadside brush always filled me with joy and excitement. When my son was born in 2025, one of the first things that crossed my mind was that he would never experience that kind of joy. This visual essay stems from that sad realization. In it, I created a series of post-apocalyptic fireflies using photographs that capture the glint of fat droplets running off meat at a traditional campeiro barbecue—meat fireflies. "Teratogeny" is the term for morphological anomalies. The disappearance of the fireflies from my childhood is due to the rarely discussed, rapid destruction of the Pampas biome—a moral anomaly of Rio Grande do Sul.