Dutchmen Jeroen Kookhaas and Dre Urhahn worked hard to make Morro Dona Marta, once one of Rio’s most violent slums, a ‘work of art’. The Dutchmen along with 25 Brazilians who live in the slum painted the houses in bright and contrasting colors.
Dona Marta was taken over by Rio’s Peacekeeping Police Unit (dubbed UPP) in December of 2008, after days of violent confrontations between drug kingpins and the police. Since then the slum, which lies in one of Rio’s sleepy neighborhoods has been quiet. Kids today can play out on the streets, and residents are no longer afraid to walk up the steep streets at night.
But even with the peace, the favela (Portuguese word for slum) was a gloomy sight. The semi-finished houses, with uneven cement trying to hide the concrete blocks and red bricks; holes in the walls where a future door would find its home. These two young men painted the outside of 34 of these dwellings in a project dubbed Favela Painting. The project had the support of AkzoNobel, the manufacturer of the paint used in the endeavor, which donated 2.5 thousand liters of the colors and paid slum residents for their work.
This was not the first time Kookhaas and Urhahn raised their brushes in Rio for their Favela Painting projects. For six months between 2007-2008 these two men from Holland painted giant panels to decorate the Vila Cruzeiro Favela, another very violent part of the city. The team has also led projects in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco and in the poorer regions of Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador.
To check out the finished product go to: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4554503&l=66947be441&id=218328505775
Tags: art, Favela, foreigners
