In an award-winning essay, photographer Gabriela Biló chronicled the effort to overturn an election — and the institutions that ultimately defended Brazil’s democracy.
Gabriela Biló, 37, a photojournalist for the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, had been taking pictures for less than an hour on Jan. 8, 2023 in Brasilia, when thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalized the buildings housing the National Congress, the presidential offices and the Supreme Federal Court (STF).
It was a chaotic, dangerous and relatively short moment, but for Biló it became the beginning of a visual project that followed the three years from the attempted coup d’etat to the trial in which Bolsonaro was ultimately sentenced to 27 years in prison. The photo essay, titled “Como Sobrevivem as Democracias” (“How Democracies Survive” in Portuguese),” recently earned Biló a Gabo Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in Latin American journalism.
“I won the World Press Photo award for a photo I took on January 8, but this one is quite different because it’s about a trial—about the consequences of that event”, Gabriela Biló told the LatAm Journalism Review (LJR), adding that even though both deal with political themes, this one is much more austere.
“There’s little action in the photos; it’s more about democratic action, institutional action. And in my other photo essays, we have many striking photos, but with this one, I think the subject matter itself is more impactful.”
The Gabo Award jury said in a statement that Biló’s work succeeded in making an abstract concept like democracy tangible to audiences.
“Gabriela Biló weaves together a complete and complex narrative about Bolsonaro’s trial and the defense of human rights at a time when democracy is under threat,” one of the jurors said.
In a recent panel at the 2026 Abraji Conference, Biló spoke about the challenges of telling the story of how Brazilian democracy survived in pictures.
Biló began her photojournalism career covering daily news in São Paulo for small photo agencies. After photographing the historic nationwide protests over living standards, corruption and public spending in 2013, she discovered a passion for political journalism. Her first assignment in Brasília, covering the 2016 impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, reinforced her interest in documenting how political decisions shape social issues.
Biló now lives in Brasília and has built a portfolio of other award-winning political photojournalism projects.
“Como Sobrevivem as Democracias” encompasses 10 black and white photographs that paint an intimate picture of what happened during the failed coup and its aftermath. Her first photo shows an isolated Bolsonaro behind a window at the Alvorada Palace, the official home of Brazil’s president, in 2022.
President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) at a press conference at the Planalto Palace - Gabriela Biló - Oct. 10, 2022/FolhaPress
“In this photo [Bolsonaro] had lost the first [electoral] round by a margin slightly larger than his campaign had expected, and he began holding meetings. He was holed up there. We’d spend the whole day waiting down there on that floor, baking in the Brasília heat, out in the sun, and then he’d show up, say a few words, and leave”, Biló said during a panel at the 2026 Abraji Conference in São Paulo.
At that time, she recalled, the atmosphere was tense and icy.
“Later we found out that it was precisely during that period that the final details of the coup were being written up in those meetings, so you could see that there was something that wasn’t quite tangible yet,” Biló said.
The tension finally erupted on Jan. 8, 2023. That day on the field, she said, she was not really looking for the perfect angles — she was just trying to blend in.
“A lot was happening around me that I didn’t photograph. At most I would turn around and take a few photos because it was very dangerous that day — many photojournalists were assaulted, and their equipment was stolen,” Biló recalled during her panel.
Bolsonaro supporters attack the Planalto Palace, in Brasília - Gabriela Biló Jan. 8, 2023/Folhapress
During that day, at least 16 journalists were attacked and threatened while covering the attempted coup d’etat. In the months that followed the 2022 presidential elections,, many of Bolsonaro’s supporters protested because they refused to accept his defeat.
The press itself also became part of Biló’s photo essay. The fifth photo shows journalists in July 2025 trying to get quotes from Jair Bolsonaro’s defense attorney, Celso Vilardi, following an extensive investigation into the former president’s role in orchestrating the coup.
The presence of journalists filling the courtyard of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) served as a visual testament to the role of the press in a democracy, Biló wrote in the captions that accompany each photo.
To Biló, the scene stands in stark contrast to the atmosphere for journalists during the former president’s term, in which intimidation, harassment and smear campaigns were orchestrated at the highest levels of government. “This is, in a way, a tribute to the press, because we must also remember that an attack on a journalist is an attack on democracy, and one of the indicators we use to measure the health of a country’s democracy is how much these journalists are at risk, how many journalists are threatened, how many journalists die, and how many people give up journalism because of the danger”, Biló said.
At the end of the sessions and during breaks, [Bolsonaro] lawyers would exit through the ground floor of the Brazilian Supreme Court, where they were approached by journalists - Gabriela Biló on Sept. 2, 2025/Folhapress
Democracy is a difficult concept to illustrate, but Biló did it by starting with identifying the coup’s targets, which included the voting system, the STF, the National Congress and his political rivals.
“For me, it was a matter of understanding which pillars are targeted when a democracy is under attack,” Biló told LJR. “From there, I depicted those pillars and managed to represent the concept of democracy. And reaching that conclusion wasn’t that complicated because it was something I was living through, I was seeing, I was witnessing — so it was almost natural because it was happening right before my eyes, and I simply portrayed what I was seeing.”
According to Manuel Ortiz Escamez, one of the Gabo Award jurors, despite “the democratic setbacks that have occurred around the world, Brazil stood up for democracy” in a period in which U.S. government officials have injected themselves into elections across Latin America.
When questioned if this essay could serve as part of an even larger story, Biló told LJR that she expects more chapters may come.
“As we’ve learned all too well, democracy isn’t a given. It’s a constant effort to protect and defend it. I don’t think it’s something that can ever be considered finished. Never, ever — not by me, not by anyone else, and not by future generations,” Biló said. “For me, it would only be over if I die, but for the history of world politics — Brazilian politics in particular — I think it’s something we have to always remain vigilant about.”
