A Favela da Santa Rocinha

Let me introduce you to one of my favorite paintings! I bought it in 1998 in Rio de Janeiro from an artist called Teobaldo. The combination of colors on the original is just amazing. It represents the Favela of Santa Rocinha which is the largest favela in Latin America. More than 100,000 people live there hanging on the hillside of a Moro. In addition to being a nest for all sorts of traffic it has also become a city of its own where poor people mostly immigrants from the Nordeste live. Teobaldo grew up in this favela but managed to get out of it thanks to his amazing artistic talents. A portion of all the paintings he sells is used for schools in the favela. He wants to give education to children of the favela so that they don't become drug dealers, some of them as young as 10 years old (!). If you are interested in the subject, which involves many interesting sociological and political issues I recommend a movie called "City of God" ("Cidade de Deus" in Portuguese) and a book from Caco Barcelos. Barcelos is a journalist from O Globo, the Brazilian giant media conglomerate. He spent one year with one of the godfathers of the favela, Juliano V.P. and wrote a book about this experience. I started reading this book during my summer vacation in Rio a couple of years ago. The book is fascinating. One morning, during my stay there, the friend I was staying with brought me the newspaper saying that a leader of the Sta. Rocinha favela who had been incarcerated a few months earlier was found dead in his cell with a note saying "you talked too much". This guy was no other than Juliano V.P. That was kind of a shock. I guess I got so much into the book that I sort of suddenly got caught up by reality. In the article they mentioned the fact that Juliano V.P. had told the story of his life to Barcelos and some of the secrets of the favela... since then I can't help thinking about this strange story every time I look at my painting...