HELP THE COMMUNITY OF VILA CRUZEIRO CREATE THE WORLDS' MOST AMAZING MOSAIC!
LET'S CREATE THE WORLDS' MOST AMAZING MOSAIC TOGETHER!
CHECK OUT THE STORY IN THIS VIDEO:
SO WHAT'S THE PLAN?
To recreate the whole painting Rio Cruzeiro in Mosaic! Stone by stone, to ensure the amazing design by master tattooist Rob Admiraal will survive – and look better than ever.
A group of women from the community teamed up with the amazing Cosmonautos Mosaicos to become skilled experts in the art of Mosaic. One part at a time, they trace the lines of the old painting on paper, which they take to the Favela Mosaico Workshop – right on the same street in Vila Cruzeiro – where they lay the tiles to recreate the artwork by Master Tattooist Rob Admiraal.
Together with guys from the Favela Painting crew they bring the tiled pieces back out on the street, position them, glue everything to the concrete and finally add grout to fixate the artwork for ever.
At the same time, a crew of local masons, are adding stucco and tiles to the surrounding buildings, to create an artwork that involves the entire street.
Ultimately, Rua Santa Helena – the very same street where in 2005 the idea for the Favela Painting project was born – will become one of the most wondrous places in the world. A dedication to collaboration, creativity and togetherness. What was once said by the painters, more than ten years ago: ‘one day i will show my grandson what we did when he was young’ will finally become true.
Money raised for this project is used solely for the project itself. No overhead, no costs, every penny goes to Rio. The whole team is local, which means from the communbity itself, including team leaders and project managers. They are supported by United Painting through social media, picture, facetime etcetera. Some technical guidance and quality control is done by the Cosmonautos Mosaicos, who are Rio-based.
FAVELA PLASTER PROJECT - HOW PIGMENT AND TILES REPLACES PAINT TO ENSURE MORE DURABILITY
FAVELA PAINTING
FAVELA PLASTER PROJECT - HOW PIGMENT AND TILES REPLACES PAINT TO ENSURE MORE DURABILITY
Rua Santa Helena is a street in Vila Cruzeiro, one of the many favelas in Rio de Janeiro. In 2008 Favela Painting completed a giant painting of Koi carp swimming upstream on this street and named the project Rio (‘river’) Cruzeiro. The design was made together with Amsterdam based tattoo-artist Rob Admiraal. After almost a decade since its realisation, time has taken its toll on the painting. Due to sunlight, rainfall and playing children who use the steep hillsides to play slide, in some parts the paint has almost completely faded.
It became obvious that the artwork needed some serious restoration. To repaint it however – would only recreate the same problem in the future. Together with the community, it was decided to use a more sustainable solution and recreate the entire painting as a gigantic mosaic. Favela Painting teamed up with a local organisation, Cosmonauta Mosaicos, who are specialised in urban interventions with mosaics. A crew of local women have been trained in the technique of mosaics and have started the immense task of recreating the faded artwork.
The brick houses alongside the artwork on Rua Santa Helena are also receiving a transformation. Starting from the street level entrance of Rua Santa Helena reaching all the way to the top of the hill. A combination of pigmented lime stucco and contrasting tiles creates a sustainable, long lasting layer.The playful design follows the existing architecture while creating an enveloping effect, visually connecting all the houses together. The owners pick the colours for their own property.
For this extensive task, we assembled a crew of local masons. We found a Brazilian architect who specializes in restoration, preparing and applying lime stucco, to instruct them. The crew delivers high quality craftsmanship with a keen eye for detail. Neighbourhood youth, contracted as apprentices, were trained by the more experienced crewmembers. Other locals were trained in general production to organize and run the project in a flexible and autonomous fashion. Close contact with the Favela Painting HQ in the Netherlands is kept for designs and logistics. Furthermore, one of the neighbours cooks lunch for the whole crew every day they work.
Ironically, Favela Painting is not using paint for the Santa Helena Project. For this specific assignment, we came to the realisation that we had to start using more sustainable materials. In cooperation with local experts and architects we developed a new workflow, using pigmented lime stucco and tiles. These materials are common and locally available. Not only will the new exteriors of the houses last much longer, the homes themselves were improved beforehand. Defective walls were repaired and messy electricity lines were cleaned up.
Producing lime is much cleaner than regular cement and most of the CO2 released during the manufacturing process of lime is re-absorbed during the lifetime of the lime stucco. It is therefore close to carbon neutral. It is permeable, flexible and workable. Ideal for Rio de Janeiro’s weather conditions.
SANTA HELENA IS AN ONGOING PROJECT AND FAVELA PAINTING IS CONTINUOUSLY LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIPS AND FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE ENTIRE MOSAIC AND THE SURROUNDING HOUSES.
LARGE-SCALE TRANSFORMATION OF GERMANTOWN AVENUE IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA, ONE OF PHILLY'S OLDEST COMMERCIAL CORRIDORS
PHILLY PAINTING
LARGE-SCALE TRANSFORMATION OF GERMANTOWN AVENUE IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA, ONE OF PHILLY'S OLDEST COMMERCIAL CORRIDORS
Favelapainting was commissioned by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (MAP) to conceive and engineer a large-scale transformation of Germantown Avenue in North Philadelphia. As major industries have gone bankrupt or abandoned the city, this neighbourhood has experienced a slow and steady decline for years. The goal was to revitalise and re-energise one of Philadelphia’s oldest commercial corridors.
Favela Painting relocated a block from the site and spent eighteen months as committed advocates to direct and execute the project together with a local team. With community leaders, they invited a dozen young men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 who lived in the area. Additionally, teams of (ex)prisoners, making their re-entry into society, worked on the project.
They faced the task of painting over 50 individual buildings on the Avenue while all the individual tenants had input in the design for their building. We devised a system of weaving bands of color creating consistency while respecting the desires of the individual building tenants. The colours were chosen after extensive analysis of the palette seen on the streets of Philadelphia. A swatch system was developed so building owners understood the framework and made their selections accordingly. Colours were then integrated into one building subsequently lending colours to the next. These swatches of “native” color were reshaped and scaled to transcend the architecture of the individual buildings, and lend uniformity to a lively but visually incoherent stretch of the avenue.
The playful design follows the existing architecture while creating an enveloping effect, visually connecting all the houses together. The owners pick the colours for their own As exciting as the project was, Philly Painting was not without its challenges: architectural, human and logistical. The commercial corridor between Huntingdon and Somerset is characterised by small businesses and not-for-profits, vacant buildings, wildly varied signage scale, styles and surfaces, deteriorating facades and cornices with boarded up windows. As complex as the challenges were, however, the potential is palpable. As we returned weekly to canvas merchants and seek their approval, the enthusiasm for the potential of this project to create enthusiasm and cohesion through art had grown with more and more merchants wanting to participate.
The project provided training and jobs in an area where unemployment and crime is extremely high, especially within the younger population. Wearing sweaters and shirts with the Philly Painting logo, the local painters were identifiable as transformers of their neighbourhood. A local team of filmmakers produced monthly episodes of video updates. Half of the painters went on to work for the MAP.
LOCAL TAP-TAP BUSES BECOME INSPIRATION FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF HILLSIDE COMMUNITY VILLA ROSA IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAÏTI
HAITI PAINTING
LOCAL TAP-TAP BUSES BECOME INSPIRATION FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF HILLSIDE COMMUNITY VILLA ROSA IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAÏTI
In 2015, Favela Painting was invited by Cordaid (Dutch NGO) to organise a painting project in Port-au-Prince. They visited many locations in the city before deciding on a hillside community called Vila Rosa to start the work. Vila Rosa is very centrally located in Port-au-Prince and was heavily hit by the earthquake of 2010. Many houses have since then been rebuilt but most are unfinished with the raw brick left exposed.
They invited local artists to participate in a workshop through which the design concept was established inspired by the elaborately painted Tap-Tap buses that are ubiquitous in Haiti.
A separate workshop was organised with the house owners to determine the color palette for the area’s transformation. A design was created for each individual house, which was then discussed with the owner and often adjusted to fit his/her taste, keeping in mind that the overall design should create a unified effect, connecting the houses with color. The team of local painters would execute the painting using the instructions by Favela Painting.
A team of 20 local masons plastered 15 houses after which they were painted by a team of 10 painters, including 2 women. Inspired by the Tap-Tap buses the design follows the architectural elements of the buildings with outlines of bold and typically Haitian colours. During the execution of the project Favela Painting encountered many problems in the area which needed to be addressed. They started by repairing stairs which were extremely worn and dangerous to walk on. Small open/public spaces, water drainage channel and retaining walls are also being reconstructed. All the work is done by residents of the neighbourhood.
Filmmakers, Romel Jean Pierre and Jon Kaufman were invited to train a local broadcasting team, called Tap-Tap TV, to report on the project.
Haiti painting received support by the Stimuleringsfonds in 2015. Cordaid left the project early 2016 after which we continued, collaborating with a local Haitian organisation, Cocread Haiti.
PRAÇA CANTÂO - HUGE COMMUNITY ARTWORK IN THE FAVELA'S OF RIO, AIMED TO IGNITE PERSONAL AND SOCIETAL CHANGE
PRAÇA CANTÂO
HUGE COMMUNITY ARTWORK IN THE FAVELA'S OF RIO, AIMED TO IGNITE PERSONAL AND SOCIETAL CHANGE
The third Favela Painting project took place in Zona Sul (South zone). Here the favelas are built on the steep mountains in the central area of the city. A sharp contrast between formal and informal. The location was Praça Cantão in a neighbourhood called Santa Marta. The location consists of houses built around a public space with a circle drawn into the concrete, in the middle.
The project required a simple design as it involved painting over 34 houses, covering an area of 7000 square metres and a limited amount of time. Favela Painting created a design based on a color circle fanning out its colours from the centre of the square, covering the buildings in bright contrasting rays. The coloured lines run diagonally across the buildings, accentuating their organic positioning.
The project involved training the local youths in painting and employed 25 locals to realize its completion within a month. The main objective was to create a huge piece of community art that serves as a catalyst for the improvement of housing and neighbourhoods. By empowering and bringing colour and joy to these people, we hoped to ignite personal and societal change on all levels.
