Poesía and Magica
This month we’ve back to the Favela of Vila Brasilandia, at the north of Sao Paulo, to continue the project “Luz Nas Vielas” that we started in January 2012. There was where we learned that Urban Art can connect people and empower neighbors. It took two weeks of work that inspired us to make a series of works, strategically scattered in different alleys of the favela, known as “becos” and “vielas”. We’ve added two more works to the series.
We tried to synthesize the essence of Brâsilandia. The strategy was easy: simplify the spacial complexity of these alleys using the technique of anamorphosis to generate one single “canvas”. We would write then a series of words that portrays the true daily life of the neighbors: “Amor, Beleza, Orgulho, Doçura, Firmeza” (Love, pride, sweetness, beauty, strenght). The process was collaborative, and took over walls and floor, democratizing all the neighbors under one color field, setting new bondings between people.
Now, we’ve painted two new words, to extend the outreach of the existent project. “Poesía” and “Magica”, purple and green, highlight the beauty of the irregular constructions, the magic of the spontaneous urban growth, the intensity of the relationships between neighbors, the smile of the kids playing up and down the stairs.
Is in these streets where you get to feel the true life of the hood. Where truly makes sense to include people, to create change. This project aims to be a colorful shout in the middle of a brick ocean, in which life is on the edge. Usually municipal authorities turn the back on the outskirts, which we often get to know because of the infamy from the media. We as urban artists have to reverse that process of negativity, because the favela does not have to be synonym with violence, because life in this place is more intense and real, because “there is no purest and most sincere poetry, than the one that comes from the favela”.
