The photographer Joachim Schmid has an essay on soccer fields in Brazil (The Field, 2010) that shows that, depending on the contingencies found, football doesn’t have to be practiced in a rectangle. More than a revelation that it can accommodate to topography and non-orthogonal limits, the photos show a fantastic solid/void contrast in the middle of a dense and irregular urban fabric – certainly a favela. And they convey the idea that even in an informal neighborhood where there is great pressure for new occupations, and even if the neighboring buildings have to lean shoulder to shoulder, balancing to keep the organic geometry of this Field free — even so, this unusual and magical void will always remain empty because of its obvious importance to all of those who use it.
Photo originally published in Pise a Grama # 3.
See also Joachim Schmid.
