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| Favela Painting | |
|---|---|
| Title | Favela Painting |
| Artist | Haas&Hahn |
| Year | 2005–present |
| Medium | Community mural, public art, site-specific painting |
| Location | Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
Favela Painting is a community-based public art initiative led by the Dutch artist duo Haas&Hahn that produced large-scale mural projects in Brazilian favelas. The project brought together international artists, local residents, nongovernmental organizations, and municipal entities to transform urban surfaces through coordinated color schemes and geometric patterns. It received attention from art institutions, media outlets, and urban planners for its blending of contemporary art, participatory practice, and social urban intervention.
Haas&Hahn, comprising Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, developed the project after working in performance and mural practice in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and The Hague. Their early collaborations connected with residencies and exhibitions at institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and the Tate Modern. Initial fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro built on exchanges with community organizations, local collectives, and international sponsors including cultural attaches and philanthropic foundations. The first major execution occurred in the Santa Marta community, followed by initiatives in other neighborhoods intersecting with municipal programs like Pacifying Police Units (UPP) policies and urban redevelopment schemes. The work garnered invitations to present at venues including the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Serpentine Galleries.
The concept interlinks contemporary muralism, community arts practice, and placemaking strategies influenced by movements such as Street art, Public art, and Participatory art. Objectives included visual cohesion across fragmented hillside settlements, collaborative capacity-building with local youth and artisans, and creating imagery legible to aerial and satellite perspectives used by mapping projects like Google Maps and OpenStreetMap. The initiative aimed to intersect cultural programming by partnering with organizations such as UNICEF, UN-Habitat, British Council, and municipal cultural departments to align aesthetic interventions with social projects in health, tourism, and local entrepreneurship.
Major works include the Santa Marta rooftop canvases and multi-block color fields executed across rooftops and facades that altered the micro-urban landscape visible from viewpoints like Cristo Redentor and the Sugarloaf Mountain. Subsequent projects extended to other communities and commissions for festivals, museums, and biennials such as the São Paulo Art Biennial, Bienal de São Paulo, Liverpool Biennial, and site-specific commissions for galleries like the Whitechapel Gallery and institutions including the British Museum and MAXXI. Collaborations produced printed editions and exhibitions that toured cultural centers such as the Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Haas&Hahn led a multidisciplinary team involving local painters, community leaders, students from institutions like the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, visiting artists from networks including Artists for Humanity, and volunteers associated with NGOs such as Viva Rio and Instituto Pereira Passos. Collaborators included photographers, curators from the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, urbanists linked to the Universidade Federal Fluminense, and cultural producers who have worked with festivals like Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Lyon and organizations such as Prince Claus Fund and Ford Foundation.
Execution relied on large-scale planning, vector-like designs, scaffolding systems, color-matching protocols, and durable exterior paints supplied by manufacturers that also service municipal projects. Techniques combined freehand painting, grid-transfer methods analogous to studio mural workflows practiced in Los Angeles, Berlin, and New York City, and participatory workshops modeled on programs used by collectives in Johannesburg and Mexico City. Materials selection considered climatic factors typical of Rio de Janeiro—humidity, sunlight, and precipitation—and maintenance strategies consistent with conservation approaches employed by municipal heritage agencies and nonprofits.
The project received international media coverage from outlets such as The New York Times, BBC News, The Guardian, and art journals including Artforum and Frieze. Urban planners and academics from institutions like MIT, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and London School of Economics referenced the work in studies of creative urban interventions, tourism flows, and social capital formation. The murals influenced cultural tourism to lookout points near Santa Marta and fed into debates at policy forums hosted by bodies such as UNESCO and Inter-American Development Bank.
Critiques addressed tensions familiar in debates over cultural intervention and urban renewal, including concerns raised by scholars from University of São Paulo and community activists associated with collectives in Complexo do Alemão and Rocinha. Topics included debates over gentrification effects observed in neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment, authorship and benefit distribution in community-led art, and the interactions with policing initiatives like UPP. Commentaries in publications such as Jornal do Brasil and independent outlets questioned sustainability, maintenance responsibilities, and whether aesthetic projects sufficiently addressed structural inequalities documented by researchers at Fundação Getulio Vargas and public policy institutes.
Category:Public art projects Category:Brazilian art