About the Journal

Ensaios de Geografia (Essays of Geography) is a journal published under a continuous publication model by the Graduate Program in Geography at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. We seek to disseminate research on topics related to Geography and related fields, as well as provide a space for academic and professional development.

ISSN: 2316-8544

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Fechamento do Número 24 (2024): Avanços e Realizações da Ensaios de Geografia

2024-12-21

Com satisfação, anunciamos o encerramento do número 24, volume único de 2024, da Revista Ensaios de Geografia. Esta edição está disponível em nosso site, incluindo o editorial, os sumários e os trabalhos completos, que podem ser acessados em: https://periodicos.uff.br/ensaios_posgeo/issue/view/3012.

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Cover

Desire Path in Brasília, Federal District – December 2024

 

From the top of Brasília's 120-meter-tall digital TV tower, you can see the entire city. From the 360-degree viewpoint, you can spot all the city's postcard landmarks in the distance: the Esplanade with its ministries and Congress, with the vast lawn in front; the grandeur of the Monumental Axis; the JK Bridge, connecting the city center to Lago Sul, Paranoá, and São Sebastião; the Cathedral. The entire northern edge of Lake Paranoá—a solution to alleviate the city’s dryness, with waters diverted from the Paranoá River.

After living away from Brasília for a while, I always notice something when I return and find myself in high places like this: how everything is truly on a single level. Here in Rio, the city's landscape looks like a collage of multiple layers, often with mountains in the background. In Brasília, you only stop seeing things because your vision reaches its limit, there's nothing obstructing the view. Your gaze stretches on and on until, at the very end, you see the horizon line, straight, flat, a firm stroke separating land from sky.

You notice all this when looking ahead, but in this photo, I decided to look down a little. Of course, I also have pictures of the bridge, the Esplanade of Ministries, the lake, and so on, but what moves me about the city are the smaller things, the unnoticed habits. The other day, on my way to my university's experimental garden, I stopped for a few minutes to watch a line of ants carrying yellow flowers and leaves somewhere. Stopping to look at the ground sometimes shows us things we miss in the rush of daily life.

Looking northwest from the tower’s viewpoint, at the bottom of the image, you see the Estrada Parque Contorno road, where black and red cars pass. Beyond it, in the center of the image, a large lawn separates the road from the Housing Sector. And in the middle of it all, a curious eye spots a trail cutting across the entire open field toward the houses. This is what we call a desire path.

I think the first time I encountered this phenomenon was through the photos of photographer Diego Bressani, who has documented these paths, calling them the work of "Brasília's resilient pedestrians." The lack or insufficiency of sidewalks in the city forces people to carve their own ways across the vast lawns, tattooing the ground with their routes. It's the imprint of countless collective steps that shape the city’s landscape, forming trails where we wish to walk.

Sometimes I wonder who starts these desire paths. I've come across well-trodden, established trails and simply followed the existing path, the history of many footsteps that walked there before me and marked the way I now take. A guide from anonymous narrators who weave their experiences into the city and leave them recorded there.

The last observation I’ll share isn’t mine, it's Bressani's, but I think it's worth repeating. In the post where he shared his photos of these paths (captured on film and developed in black and white), he wrote: "Generally, during the dry season, the paths appear white in photos (dry, almost dead earth). In the rainy season, they turn black (red earth, alive and wet). They disappeared during the pandemic, the grass grew back." This photo of mine is from 2024, showing that with people returning to the streets and moving through these spaces, the paths have reappeared.

 

Photo taken with an iPhone 13.

 

Maria Alice Barboza
Architecture and Urbanism student (FAU/UFRJ)

Published: 2025-06-08

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