Spirit of Aloha | Features | May/June 2007

SERGIO GOES
The Vision

As a rule I like to get close to my subjects. This lets me achieve a sort of intimacy that translates into something meaningful. But, recently, as I realized that distance also creates insight, I went in the opposite direction: I began a collaboration with Armando Martinez, a Venezuelan ultralight pilot, and started photographing the island of O‘ahu from the air. The ultralight allows an aerial intimacy you normally can’t get from a helicopter or a small plane. It gives a new perspective; you see the essence of things you’ve never imagined before. Your sense of scale shifts, there are new juxtapositions from the air, and you be­gin to realize how much we affect our environment. It’s a thrilling feeling. It’s like receiving new secrets

The Photographer

Sergio Goes, filmmaker and photographer, is originally from Brazil, but has lived in Hawai‘i on and off for the past 15 years. His work has been published and exhibited internationally at shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the London Biennial, and in Hawai‘i at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum. His feature-length documentary was awarded the HBO Fea­ture Documentary Award and the Charles Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award; it is currently shown on the Sundance Channel. In 2005, Goes was one of seven artists invited to The Contem­porary Museum Biennial of Hawai‘i Artists

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