End of the Line
Participation in the exhibition letters to the mayor organized by Storefront Gallery.
The Brazilian edition took place at Galeria Pivô and was curated by Bruno Almeida and Fernando Falcon.
Public, social, economic policies, urban plans. Tensions between public and private initiatives. Implemented, interrupted projects, missed opportunities, discontinuity. The work ‘End of the Line’ analyzes the city of São Paulo through a historical reading of its managers and a reflection of their urban visions in the context of the city we know today.
A number of issues such as progress, landscape, mobility, ethics, and expansion are addressed in 12 postcards, postmarked 2016 and addressed to the past, as if we could, through a future vision, alert those who run the city about the consequences of their actions [or non-actions]. The choice of the years [1867,1899, 1917, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1958, 1971, 1889 and 1995], and consequently of the addressed mayors, occurred through an analysis of the growth of the urban sprawl of the municipality. The last postcard, which would be addressed to mayor Fernando Haddad, was left blank to be written later, because the historical distance is necessary for a long-term analysis of the development of his proposals.
The photographs that illustrate the front of the postcards were taken during a trip [trip, because we often feel like outsiders in our own city] that leaves from Estação da Luz (Luz Station), symbol of the beginning of the modernization of São Paulo, and follows the train line to the southern end of the city, trailing the direction of major municipal expansion. The places photographed approximate the boundaries of the urban sprawl that punctuates the work: some have long ceased to be boundaries and have become regions of central importance to the city, while others are treated as if they were not part of it.
End of the Line is a work of historical research and critical reflection, but mainly, of finding places within this immense metropolis of which we know so little.
vão webpage
vão on facebook
vão on instagram
P01_Bom Retiro
Dear president of the province,
After a long wait, it’s opened!
That’s more like it
bread-‘n-coffee
That’s more like it
Fly, smoke 1
If São Paulo has become one of the largest urban and economic centers in the world, it is greatly due to the modernization process initiated by the railroad. Nowadays, its rails do not carry loads, but people, like us, who embarked on Luz Station toward the southern end of the city. Along the way, we made 12 stops that correspond to the urban growth in different times. The most disturbing thing was realizing that the further we move towards the new boundaries, the more we seem to go back in time...
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
1 Extracted from the poem Iron Horse written by Manuel Bandeira
To the pres. of the province José T. de Barros
Government Palace
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1867
P02_Barra Funda
Dear mayor,
Here we are at Chácara do Carvalho to greet you: the first mayor after 60 years of the position’s extinction.
As you can see, São Paulo has grown beyond the railway and its landscape has changed completely. Where your cows and purebred horses grazed, there were sheds and working-class villages that have been replaced by these residential towers.
We salute the third foundation of the city!
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Antonio da Silva Prado
XV de Novembro St. with Tesouro St.
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1899
P03_Lapa
Dear mayor,
It is very sad that even today we still have to repeat: social question is NOT a matter of police.
As the name of the group, ‘Jovens Incansáveis’ (Tireless Youth) makes clear, repression will never make the fight stop and keep rights from being won.
Freedom for
all the strikers
that were arrested!
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Washington Luís
Prates Palace – Libero Badaró St., 293
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1917
P04_Butantã
Dear mayor,
Two engineers, two Franciscos and two very divergent visions.
We know that the proposal of Prestes Maia has a great economic appeal but try to think long term: how incredible it would be to be able to walk through the fluvial park proposed by Saturnino de Brito!
Today we suffer with the lack of public spaces and we are experiencing a serious water crisis, a reflection of the car-led thinking (and planning) that separated the rivers from the city and turned them into open sewers.
Regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor José Pires do Rio
Prates Palace – Libero Badaró St., 293
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1927
P05_Itaim Bibi
Dear mayor,
It is ironic to think that we are writing this postcard from the Cidade Jardim (Garden City) bridge, looking at a luxury development on the right bank of the river that has the same name: misappropriations of the concept proposed by E. Howard.
We know that you see in this model a way of controlling unbridled urban growth and we believe you will be scared to know that today we are more than twelve million in a city that has disastrously continued to grow in the interests of the market.
Regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Luís Inácio de Anhaia Melo
Prates Palace – Libero Badaró St., 293
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1930
P06_Santo Amaro
Dear mayor,
Here, from the ground zero of the Rio Pinheiros (Pinheiros River), we look at the Santo Amaro neighborhood with strangeness remembering that until the receiving year of this postcard this was an independent municipality. Unfortunately, among these tall buildings, there is no longer the Children's Park that gave so many children access to education, culture and art.
In any way, your initiative with Mario de Andrade left those who passed through with good memories, for according to reports we heard there "being a child was the nicest thing in the world."
Warmest regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Fabio da Silva Prado
Prates Palace – Libero Badaró St., 293
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1935
P07_Socorro
Dear mayor,
The number of automobiles today in São Paulo is the same as the population of New York: 8 million!
That amounts to an average of 60 hours a week in traffic, that is, a paulistano with a life expectancy of 73 wastes 6 years of her life stranded.
The policy of private transport has run out and there is still a certain reluctance within a sector of society to accept alternatives such as bike lanes or subway stations in their exclusive neighborhoods.
Regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Francisco Prestes Maia
Prates Palace – Libero Badaró St., 293
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1940
P08_Campo Grande
MISFITS ARRASTÃO C. MALUCO FURTO¹
Dear mayor,
What an appropriate postcard for the man who coined the phrase "he steals, but get things done"!
This idea, spread by your followers, that ethics is a chapter apart from the "damned politics" [as you called it] has perpetuated...
The motto was even stolen by a future mayor, and great admirer, Paulo Maluf.
But a thief who steals a thief…
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
¹ Transcription of the sentence that was painted on the bridge that appears on the postcard that says something like “MISFITS SACKING C. CRAZY THEFT”.
To the mayor Adhemar Pereira de Barros
Nation’s Palace (Ibirapuera Park)
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1958
P09_Cidade Dutra
Dear mayor,
The city has not stopped growing. We are close to the Estação Grajaú (Grajaú Station), the final stop of the metropolitan trains integrated to the subway, as you foresee.
As one of the people responsible for the construction of the first subway line, you will be disappointed to know that, despite being one of the most important transports in the capital, our subway system is still one of the smallest in the world. Besides, it continuously suffers delays in the development of new lines, along with overbilling schemes associated with the works, now under the responsibility of the State Government.
Regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor José C. de Figueredo Ferraz
Nation’s Palace (Ibirapuera Park)
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1971
P10_Grajaú
Dear mayor,
Finally, in over 150 years, a woman was elected!
We are in Grajaú, the southernmost part of the city, where few had the courage and sensibility to face the existing social issues as you did. The collective effort and self-management program will open new perspectives on the housing deficit issue in the municipality and is still a reference today on how to ally the public power and the organized community in a horizontal way.
Warmest regards,
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Luiza Erundina
Nation’s Palace (Ibirapuera Park)
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1989
P11_Grajaú
Dear mayor,
The work of Avenida Água Espraiada (Água Espraiada Avenue) will cost the city a lot...
Not only for the $840 billion spent on only 4.5km but mainly for the expulsion of the more than 30 thousand people who lived there for more than two decades.
The result of its policy of gentrification can be seen in the photo of this postcard: a natural spring area, more than 60km from the center, occupied by communities living in precarious conditions to this day.
Anna Juni, Enk te Winkel and Gustavo Delonero
To the mayor Paulo Salim Maluf
Nation’s Palace (Ibirapuera Park)
São Paulo / SP / Brasil
From 2016 To 1995
P12_Marsilac
