Favela Painting Project: Can a little paint change entrenched poverty?

By Julie Schwietert On June 19, 2010 · 18 Comments

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Lots of blogs and magazines focused on social change have been celebrating the Favela Painting Project.

“Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn are bringing vibrant art to unexpected places with their Favela Painting [P]roject. About one-third of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in favelas, urban slums overrun with gangs and drugs. To prevent kids from getting caught up in the drug trade, the Favela Painting project pays Brazil’s youth to create murals for their communities. As a result, armies of teenage artists are giving their neighborhoods new faces—ones covered in bright, cheerful colors. The hope is that within the next few years, the entire landscape of favelas will become a massive work of art, drawing attention to the needs of the poor and filling the community with pride.”

Koolhaas and Urhahn recruited locals in Rio’s Santa Marta favela to spend a month learning painting techniques and transforming the gray-scale favelas into a vivid complex that looks as if someone took a prism and shattered it, scattering light across the whole favela.

The result–if you like color–is impressive; you can see before and after shots here.

The project is similar to a larger, worldwide initiative called Let’s Colour, which intends to “transform grey spaces with vibrant colour.”

On the one hand, these types of projects are appealing. They leave foreigners who come into “downtrodden” spaces feeling good about themselves and their work, good about what they can “give” or “share” with other people, and good about the connections they make with people who live in “grey spaces.”

“One has to consider whether these projects are anything more than the do-gooder’s equivalent of crack: a quick hit of a feel-good sensation that eventually wears off.”

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder what happens when the artists go home and the colors fade. These types of projects are exciting and even temporarily transformative, perhaps, but they don’t lead to real social change. They don’t solve–or even really address–the kinds of problems that crowd people into tiny, grey concrete homes with little or no services. And even when these projects pay the painters, as Favela Painting does, one has to consider whether these projects are anything more than the do-gooder’s equivalent of crack: a quick hit of a feel-good sensation that eventually wears off.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.

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About The Author

Julie Schwietert

Julie Schwietert Collazo is a writer, editor, researcher, and translator currently in New York, formerly of Mexico City and San Juan. She is Matador's managing editor and is the lead faculty member of MatadorU's travel writing program.

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Anon

I think it’s ultimately a little empty. If this is the only thing they’re doing to help, than they should just stop. Do they think just because they’re painters they can get away without really contributing any change? Sounds like intellectual arrogance to me.
http://www.carolinanomad.com Spencer Spellman

Julie,
Great piece and I’m with you. I mean I think the idea behind it is good, but I’m just having a hard time understanding what it really accomplishes. I mean what if they took the time, money and resources to foster long-term social change. I know they used Brazil’s youth but it just seems so “one and done” to me.

Social change projects that seem to do the most are ones that are on-going. Ones which may mean a lot of time and resources at first, but in the long term, support and enable the people actually involved to carry out the project. These often rely on community leaders to help carry it on by empowering them.
http://www.julianlove.com Julian Love

Hi. I took the photo shown here, which I guess Mental Floss took from the Favela Painting facebook page. I’m happy for you to use the picture to promote the project, but please could you credit me as the photographer (Julian Love) and link to my site (www.julianlove.com). Thank you. Julian.

Julie Schwietert

Julian- Sure- and thanks for letting us know. Mental Floss didn’t provide a photographer credit.

Kaelynn

I disagree with the notion that it’s ultimately an empty initiative and that it doesn’t really foster any long-term good. I think community empowerment and pride is one of the first things necessary to foster social change. Since it was painted, this favela is getting international attention for something positive rather than its crime rates and drug problems. As Julie mentioned, Koolhaas and Urhahn didn’t bring in a foreign team to paint the houses, they trained the local people who are now left with new skills. The designers also want to return to the community to continue the project, so you can’t necessarily say this isn’t ongoing.

Do I think that more than just painting needs to be done to actually foster long-term social change in favelas? Absolutely. But is it unfair to tell painters they should have not even bothered? Yes. The fact of the matter is, these designers/painters might not be specialists in social change, but they do know how to paint a damn good mural. Why not share their knowledge with people who would never have access to it otherwise? At the same time, this is casting a positive international light on a community in need with the intention of inspiring others bring positive change in these favelas, too. Sometimes inspiring other people in the world to do good is just as important as being the actual agent of change.

Julie Schwietert

Kaelynn-

Thanks for your comment. I tend to agree with you, but I suppose I’m somewhat cynical because media reports tend not to include any opinions from the people who live in these communities; they’re only filled with effusive and positive stoke from the people who go into the communities…and then move on. To me, this speaks of one of the much larger problems I really want to touch on: the way in which we effectively continue to perpetuate the silencing of people, intentional or otherwise, as well as their portrayal of people who need to be helped by outsiders. I’m much more interested in projects where locals are part of the decision making process from start to finish, rather than recipients of someone else’s knowledge or skills. And as for learning how to paint buildings, I’m just not sure what long-term good that has if the local economy can’t support the newly acquired skill. I’m not saying that these kinds of projects are useless. I just think they’re cosmetic, and that the initial stoke and good feeling wears off… and then no one’s around to help.

Desi

Julie,

There are currently developing projects involving public participation with people from the favelas. These projects are actually architectural, where infra-structure of some of the favelas is being upgraded, by providing new roads, renewing building and so on. The most successful of these as far as I know is the Belo Horizonte project, which involved full public participation, where the public decided which parts of their area should be renovated with the fundings they have available. So accept from the social developments , the government has also started to improve the actual structure of the favelas, which is considered to be less costly than re-locating them and rebuilding them somewhere else. So this is a definite positive point in my opinion, especially since the favela communities have so much say in how their homes are being handled.

http://itchyfoot.tumblr.com Sara C.

You know, while I certainly don’t think this is a cure-all, I’m not as pessimistic as Julie and some other commenters.

The idea behind this reminds me a little of the Broken Windows theory, which was the guiding force behind the reversal of New York City’s fortunes back in the 80′s. The gist of that theory being that, if cities are left to rot, crime will get worse, whereas if you start with manageable – even seemingly cosmetic – projects (like fixing broken windows), the overall feeling of a neighborhood will change towards the positive. And, ultimately, crime will go down.

It’s also very similar to a lot of Jane Jacobs ideas – the problem with slums isn’t that they exist, it’s that they are crime ridden. And certain small changes to a “bad” neighborhood can turn it around for the good. It especially reminds me of the chapter in The Death and Life of Great American Cities where Jacobs talks about the ways that drugs invade a neighborhood, and how this can be stopped.

Does this painting project count as a “broken windows” or Jacobs-esque step in the right direction? I don’t know. But considering that NOBODY seems to have the cure for slum housing in the urban developing world, and a lot of projects that seemed helpful and practical have failed, this is at least has potential.

Julie Schwietert

Sara-

Death and Life of American Cities has to be one of my favorite books.

It’s not that I’m pessimistic about the project, per se. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that if the cosmetic facelift isn’t part of some larger initiative, you can’t expect entrenched social problems to change.

http://itchyfoot.tumblr.com Sara C.

I definitely agree with you, there!

I also agree that, unless members of the community are involved with projects to improve their neighborhoods, proposals don’t stand a chance (no matter how “sensible” they are on paper). I know there have been a lot of attempts to provide indoor plumbing to Mumbai’s slums which by and large have not been successful for that reason.

So I like the painting project for the favelas because it seems to at least get the community involved. But I think more local collaboration from the top down is key.

http://www.carolinanomad.com Spencer Spellman

Ok, so maybe I’m pessimistic. I consider myself more of a cynic though My point in all this is that there must be something much more deeply rooted. I’ve lived among groups of impoverished people and what they hate the most is many people, especially Americans, who come in and do something “pretty” and then they’re out and they never hear from them again. I’m not saying that that’s what’s going on here at all, but I believe projects of social change must be on-going and they must empower people. People long to be believed in. They crave the trust they would get from others that they can take tools and resources that are provided to them and be the difference makers themselves.
Liz

There is an organisation in New York called ‘Publicolor’ that employs the same idea. It paints drab, public schools in higher-crime areas, with the students’ labour to “re-engage students in their education, schools and communities; to ultimately transform them into productive members of our workforce” (http://www.publicolor.org/indexmain.html).

I agree with most of the comments here, but I would love to hear what residents of the communities say, or where kids from these painted schools are 10 years later – if the goals of these projects are actually met. I think it’s more the law of unintended consequences being used as a platform to build a community project; a little far-reaching.

Also – the skills part is great, but would everyone use these skills again or commercially? It seems a few would benefit, but again, almost as an unintended consequence.

Ultimately though I wouldn’t dash the efforts of people and groups that are trying for the better, even in small strokes

Julie Schwietert

Liz-

I think you summarized my position much better than I did. Thanks for your comment.

heather

I would imagine that having a prettier place to live is always a good thing. Small improvements can bring joy in a way that should not be ignored. If you lived there those bright colors might elevate your mood and maybe even help stave off crime (after all, several studies have shown that people are less likely to litter or graffitti in places that are clean and pretty). Simple things like your neighbors planting flowers can really make a difference in how you feel about where you live. Perhaps there are ways these artists could have contributed to make more of a difference in these residents’ lives, then again maybe not. But, as you mentioned, the people who live there could shed a lot more insight on that. Who am I to say that these people only need the bare necessities to help them better their situation?
http://www.udavipayanam.wordpress.com Malaika

Yes, it seems to be just paint but its surprising how much a bit of painting can do. Its a chance for the people in this favela to take ownership of their home, do something they can be proud of, and bring some colour to their faded neighbourhood. It’s not an ultimate end to poverty, but it’s a fresh start, and fresh starts are something we need more of.
http://www.theexpeditioner.com Luke Armstrong

I guess I agree to an extent with both sides. It´s true that making a community more eye catching is not going to solve the social problems that lead to favelas existing in the first place. But is anyone really making that claim?

So let´s all agree that it does not do that, and focus on what it does do. A person´s physical environment eventually defines their mental environment. If someone is living in a dreary slum, that has an effect of the perception they have of themselves, and in the end our self perception and where we see ourselves in the world will define where we end up in the world.

Painting the Favelas is a step in the right direction using the right means: inhabitants of the slums working to beautify their slum.

It may not be novel or earth shattering, but I disagree that it is “ultimately empty.” It´s easy for people of goodwill to get cynical, because it is true that a lot of people working to better the world do things that are ultimately amount to treating symptoms and not getting to the heart of things.

The heart of the matter is that if more people got as involved as this, the world would be be further on its way.

The world will never be “saved” with a swift stroke. But it will improve or digress. I see the Favela painting as an improvement. Small? Yes. Worthwhile? Absolutely!
Jessie

just a couple things:

1) this is not only about color: part of the point of the project is that youth that participate not only are paid but also learn a new skill that they can use and, more importantly, that potentially they can develop into a passion (you’ll notice their not just learning to paint but to create), similar to the way AfroReggae does things with music – or are you going to say AfroReggae has been a waste of effort as well? is it just because it was started by brazilians that it is okay?

2) to whoever said this is not an ongoing project (which seems to be one of the main complaints here)… it is! all you have to do is check out their website. the goal for santa marta in particular is to paint the entire favela, not just the central area.
SG F

It seems that if a more attractive appearance can brighten someone ‘s day even a little bit, then it is worth it.

Favela Painting Project: Can a little paint change entrenched poverty?

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