Felipe’s Story pt. 3 at DC’s BloomBars

I recently painted the third version of “Felipe’s Story,” the mural that has been on the side of the Washington, DC arts and performance center BloomBars since 2009. That year, I spent time living and working in the slum community (favela) City of God (Cidade de Deus) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was made infamous from a film of the same name. My…

Street Child World Cup! Football & Art for Change

The Street Child World Cup is, in my opinion, a pretty genious-y idea that began in South Africa in 2010, coinciding with the World Cup that year. This time around, a greatly expanded event took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, featuring 25 football (soccer) teams, both male and female, from 19 different countries. The teams were made up of teenagers, many of whom…

New feature by Sahar Sarshar for Voice of America

  A Farsi version of this feature will be airing on VOA’s Farsi channel for Iranian viewers this week. Thanks to Sahar Sarshar!!!

City of God/ Cidade de Deus: Rio de Janeiro

It’s been a jam-packed month in Rio de Janeiro, def one of my favorite places in the world. In what has become a regular gig, I worked with the young folks at ASVI, a community organization in the favela City of God (Cidade de Deus) in Rio’s western zone, to create a series of works of public art pieces and learn about important community…

Quilombo

One of our most interesting experiences here in Rio was visiting a quilombo, which were independent communities of runaway African slaves along with their Indigenous allies and even a few poor whites, all of whom escaped from the tyranny of the Portuguese elites and plantation owners during colonial times. There are some quilombos that continue to exist today, including this one right in a…

The Evolution of the Favelas of Rio

It’s been interesting watching the evolution of the City of God and of the favelas (slums) in general since the first time I was in Rio in 2008. At the time, pretty much every single one of the over one thousand favelas in the city was controlled by organized crime; either drug gangs made up of heavily-armed teenagers or militias of corrupt former police…

São Paulo

I wasn’t sure if I should stop by São Paulo before starting my job in Rio—I mean, I always wanted to visit one of the greatest centers of urban art in the world, but the only contacts I had there were some artists that I had met very briefly last year at an event they were participating in in the US. Would they even…

MUSAS: outdoor graffiti gallery

These last few days I’ve been going to visit a seaside community in Salvador that my friend Tiago introduced me to—Solar da Unha, a poor neighborhood with an amazing view right on the bay. It has been “adopted” by a crew of super talented local graffiti artists called Nova 10ordem, which has set up a social arts project called MUSAS that involves painting amazing…

Back in Brazil!

It feels like a homecoming being back in Salvador da Bahia after 2 and a half years—last time I was in Brazil I couldn’t make it up here. This was the first place that I ever spent time in Brazil, back in 2005, when I spent three life-changing months living and teaching classes in a terreiro de Candomblé, a center of Afro-Brazilian spirituality. While…