Synopsis of the Book "Living Roots"

"I believe the gaucho still exists because when someone needs a hand with fieldwork or asks for help and someone comes without expecting anything in return, for us, that's a 'gauchada,' that's a gaucho person. When someone is in need and another comes to offer help, I call that being 'gaucho.'" – Damian Silvera Pereira

"Living Roots" invites us to follow in the footsteps of photographer Mirella Frangella over the course of four trips through northern Uruguay, spanning from 2015 to 2023. The photographs and texts that shape this book stem from the desire to listen, learn, and understand the enduring legacy of the gauchos, a legacy alive in the lives of so many men and women of this land.

Through a series of strikingly beautiful images and interviews that bring us closer to the voices of these individuals, Living Roots offers an honest, sensitive, and illuminating perspective on this world. The book was published in March 2024 in Uruguay by Grupo Planeta.

In a short film about the project, we conducted and recorded 2017 several interviews with the Gauchos.