Eriver Hijano is a Brazilian-born photographer now based in Berlin whose images carry a quality that is difficult to define but impossible to ignore: a stillness within motion, a silence at the centre of machines built for speed. This first portfolio feature on TheArsenale focuses on the two series he shot for Wired magazine in 2014 and 2015 at the Dry Lake Races Australia, one of the most visually compelling motorsport events on the planet.
Who is Eriver Hijano?
Born in 1985 and raised in a small town outside Sao Paulo, Hijano studied photography in Toronto, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ryerson University in 2010. A year spent in Australia preceded his move to Berlin, and it was during that Australian period that he found his way to Lake Gairdner in South Australia's outback for Speed Week. The Dry Lake Races bring competitors from around the world to a remote salt flat to attempt land speed records in vehicles that range from beautifully restored vintage machines to raw, improvised hot rods. Hijano recognised the visual tension immediately: the bright colours of men and machinery against the blinding white desert.
The Dry Lake Races series
The two Wired commissions produced images that transcend conventional motorsport photography. Hijano does not shoot from the predictable angles: the spectacle, the podium, the starting line. Instead he finds the periphery, the human moments between runs, the geometry of vehicles parked on white nothing, the portrait of a competitor whose face tells more than any action shot could. The salt flat itself becomes a character: featureless and infinite, it forces every other element in the frame to carry its own weight.
The images were shot across Speed Week 2014 and 2015, a period when Hijano was developing the visual language that would define his commercial and editorial work. His approach borrows from documentary tradition without becoming documentary in the strict sense: the images are too considered, too composed, to pass as reportage. They sit in the space between portrait photography and landscape, which is precisely where the most interesting work tends to live.
Where to find more of his work
Eriver Hijano's full Dry Lake Races series is archived at his portfolio site. The work was also covered by Slate and Gessato, both of which provide useful context for understanding how the series sits within contemporary photography.
Discover art at TheArsenale Gallery
TheArsenale has always positioned photography and visual art alongside machines as equal expressions of motion culture. The gallery offers prints that carry the same attention to craft that defines Hijano's work. The Extravagant Traveler by Frederic Plateus documents a world of extraordinary vehicles through a similarly considered photographic lens. For large-format contemporary works, the Enrique Nap Big Format prints bring bold visual energy to any space. Browse the full TheArsenale Gallery collection to explore all available artworks.
