The first edition of Artivista kicked off in the heart of a Brazilian favela. The aim: to provide a platform for those left behind and shed light on an often ignored reality.
From Belo Horizonte to Paris, eight graffiti artists lived and worked side by side for a month (June/July 2018) to embellish several public spaces: the Benvinda school, the Morro das Pedras favela in Brazil, the sports field at the Robert-Debré hospital in Paris and the Place Séverine in Pré Saint-Gervais. An educational and civic approach that revives the philosophy of the street arts.
First stop : Benvinda de Carvalho school
Located at the crossroads of several favelas, this public school welcomes 1200 students from kindergarten to high school. Throughout the project, the team shared the daily life of the school and the neighborhood, and the students mobilized with enthusiasm! It took a week to transform the entire school grounds into a gigantic collective mural. This artistic project sparked the curiosity of the media in the state of Minas Gerais, who came to cover the event: a great source of pride for this small school, usually little considered at the national level, to make the headlines of the news for once.
Les fresques sur les murs de l’enceinte
Second stop, Morro das Pedras
Located in the heart of Belo Horizonte, this favela is home to a population of 25,000, mainly African and Indian. A city within a city, where local artist Dagson Silva opened the doors to us. Artivista rounded off its action by organizing a guided tour, to which people from outside the favela were invited. Morro das
Pedras, always in the media spotlight for its violence, now appeared in a new light.
Convinced that art can be an emancipating force for its inhabitants, the association helped to change the way they are usually viewed.
