making visible the invisible communities of rio de janeiro
#RioVisivel is an AHRC-Newton Fund funded collaborative project that involves academics and artists to work with the people of Rio de Janeiro to address the impact of visibility through positive personal story sharing on a make-your-own podium.
Rio de Janeiro is one of the most celebrated cities in the world, famous for its beautiful scenery and diverse cultural population. However, the poverty gap is stark and manifests in the socio cultural fabric of Rio. The city interlaced with favelas show a city full of potential yet doged by social stigma and antagonistic sentiments held towards differing social groups. #RioVisivel proposes to address the impact of visibility—for the ordinary to the extremely marginalized Cariocas through participatory experiences and performative interventions—in one of the most dynamic cities at a time when the world is focused on Rio de Janeiro for major sporting and cultural events.
creating a platform for REPRESENTATION
To link the project to the year in which the Olympic games were being held in Rio de Janeiro, #RioVisivel invited all Cariocas to share photos and stories to amplify the concept of visibility to people from different parts of the city. Recycled wood podia were built by participants in their neighbourhoods to celebrate communities that are often overshadowed. The instructions for making your own podium can be found here (courtesy of We Make Places).
Rio Visivel project Artist-Researchers: Charles Feitosa, Kate Stewart, Kazz Morohashi, Renato Rezende, Tiago Cosmo
Social Change through Creativity and Culture
Social Change through Creativity and Culture is an AHRC-Newton Fund funded project that brought together academics, artists and creative practitioners from Brazil and the UK to initiate and collaborate on projects that directly address social challenges in specific Brazilian social contexts.
The project immersed the participants in an innovative lab experience, intended to catalyse cross-disciplinary collaborations and dialogue. During the initial intensive 10-day period in October and November 2015, Lab participants worked to identify, ideate and develop key projects that applied academic and creative design processes in order to research and explore ways of building, developing and strengthening cohesive communities of socially-engaged citizens.
The projects culminated in a week-long showcasing at various locations within Rio. This included a series of events and exhibitions at Oi Futuro in Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro where the research results and creative responces were seen by the general public, press, and a policy audience. Creative Lab was associated with the Multiplicidade Festival–a high profile annual festival featuring international artists, musicians and creatives.
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