“In Rio de Janeiro, sports are life and life is not a spectator sport. Little playing fields steal back space from the asphalt and traffic circles, defying cars and buildings alike. They creep in amongst the steep and winding streets and are sketched into the golden sands that have made this city immortal.” That’s how photographers Edoardo Delille and Gabriele Galimberti describe the subject of their project, “En Plein Air.” The collaborators took to the air to get a birds-eye view of sports—from tennis to synchronized swimming to soccer—carried out all over the city by Rio residents. Through sports, they write, “The differences between high and low are made level. Kids from the favelas that cling to the hillsides come down into the city, losing themselves among the upper-crust bourgeoisie well-heeled from Ipanema and Leblon.”

“En Plein Air” is now on view in Brooklyn Bridge Park as part of The Fence, the annual outdoor exhibition organized by United Photo Industries (and supported by PDN). Their series is also one of the winners of this year’s Grand-Prize Jury Award. For the first time, the jury selecting images to be exhibited on The Fence had a tie for winner of the Grand-Prize Jury Award. Delille and Galimberti share this year’s award with Lynn Johnson, honored for her project on blast force survivors.

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You’re It: “Playgrounds,” by James Mollison
Frames per Second: Documentary Film Traces the Roots of Play (For PDN subscribers: Login required.)