Burma Installation

Beautiful JWT New York 'Burma' campaign for Human Rights Watch

Françoise Nielly

Françoise Nielly didn't come from a tough background. She grew up in South of France, between Cannes and Saint-Tropez. Her paintings, though, exhibits a brute force. What fascinating colours and expressions.

Fashion Made in Prison

Cultural centre Itaú in São Paulo organised a fashion show days before the opening of São Paulo Fashion Week. The difference is the outfits below were made by 70 female prisoners from Butantã's Prison. "To create and produce something makes me feel free. It's like being back to society." said one of the designers. The initiative is from the ngo FNAP. The foundation ensures that in 18 months, none of the prisoners who participated in the project have committed any crime since they left prison.

Stool Lady

This lady walks around the streets of Recife, in Brazil, selling stools. She collects wood from a landfill, cuts it at a friend's workshop and paint it, transforming the dirty wood into small stools which she sells for 5 reais (2,50 euros). The difference is that she sings to sell them. And she has one of the most powerful voices I've ever heard.
Please share this video. A record company should hear this and help this woman.

Café Argana Explosion

I was very unlucky to be in Morocco when Al Qaeda terrorist bombed Café Argana, but very very lucky to leave the country alive.

Some pictures I took of Place Jemaa-el-Fna with my Diane +

Where Children Sleep?

Via Le Bloge

Great work by James Mollison. He travelled around the world capturing where different kids sleep:

Roathy, 8 ans, Cambodge

Kaya, 4 ans, Tokyo

Jamie, 9 ans, New-York

Lamine, 12 ans, Sénégal

Dong, 9 ans, Yunnan (Chine)

Douha, 10 ans, Palestine

Jasmine, 4 ans, Kentucky (USA)

Prénom / âge inconnu, Roumanie

Thais, 11 ans, Rio de Janeiro

Waste Land

Few weeks ago, I wrote about JR and his ‘paper and glue’ projects that could show awful local truths to the whole world. And then accidentally I found Waste Land on Itunes. The film about Vik Muniz, an artist who went to world’s largest garbage landfills to find inspiration, was nominated for this year’s Oscar. Just like JR, Vik Muniz had an objective: to change the world. Impossible, as JR’s mission. I think the difference is that he changed a whole community for real. He didn’t just glued posters on walls, but he took a few people that worked on a waste landfill and made them be involved in his art work. He gave them the chance to create. And that chance to put your hands in something other than garbage, drugs and poverty is what can really change reality in poor areas. it’s a life changing documentary.

WASTE LAND Official Trailer from Almega Projects on Vimeo.

The Day Roses Fell From the Sky

Beautiful!

The Day Roses Fell From The Sky from Rafael Rizuto on Vimeo.

Inside Out Project

Graffiti artist JR had a very difficult task when invited to talk at TED conference: to change the world. He obviously couldn't do it, but in my point of view, he helped a lot of people to see it in a different angle. And all he needed was a camera, a printer and some glue. He posted giant portraits from people going through political or social problems in the streets and slums of Rio, Liberia, india, France. His project Womens are Heroes (previously posted here) shocked Brazil and made the whole world aware of horrible atrocities Brazilian police were doing at the favelas.
You can change or own image here, so he can glue it. Beautiful project!

Eighteen

Photographer Natan Dvir is a jew. He grew up and spent most of his photographic career in Israel. One day he realised he didn't understand the Arab society. He became interested in the stories of the minority of the people living in a country defined by majority's religion. He focused on men and women at the age of 18, considering the a crucial turning point in their lives.
"Eighteen is an artistic point of contact serving as an invitation to get closer. A project aimed at reconciliation through understanding and respect. An inside view by one who is typically regarded as an outsider. If I, a Jewish Israeli man, have been accepted and was allowed into my subjects' personal lives — so can others." he says.

Via Lens Culture.

Bansky - now in Hollywood.

Laugh Cures

Beautiful work comedy group Olaria GB (some of the clowns are my dear friends from Uni) is doing at São Paulo clinics. I'm very proud of you guys!

You don't need to speak Portuguese to feel the vibe:

Rio on Fire

Carnival in Brazil is not just fun. It’s an industry that creates more than 300.000 jobs and pumps $500.000 dollars into the city’s economy annually. Not counting it’s an absolute national passion. Millions of citizens, usually from least benefited areas, put their heart into it throughout the whole year, sewing costumes, building floats, creating sculptures and composing new samba songs.

This week, Rio cried. On Monday, a fire destroyed a huge area of ‘Cidade do Samba’: the warehouse where Samba groups store their material. With the Carnival big parade set to begin on the 4th of March, it hurt to see people involved among ashes of their own creative work.

What impressed me was that less than 24 hours after sad event, the venue where Grande Rio, one of the samba groups, rehearse was on fire. This time, a different kind of fire, thank God. It was completely full of people dancing, playing the drums, shouting the theme lyrics. ‘I have nothing, but when I look at this crowd I feel I have everything’, said Grande Rio’s director, who promised, no matter how, everyone will have a costume for the big day in March.

I do not know where this people take so much strength from.