The Youth of Pro Jovem Adolescente Exhibit Their Photography

On Friday, the youth program located in the Partenon neighborhood of Porto Alegre, celebrated their one year anniversary. We invited their family and our colleagues to an afternoon of good food, good music.

Everyone gathered around to give their attention as each youth talked about their wonderful artwork such as the beautiful mural they created together a few months ago.

They had a first showing of their photography and their interpretation of the "Drugs: Impact on Our Lives" theme that they had chosen. Each youth was chose their top three favorite photographs and wrote about them. They'll also be writing biographies. They're still coming up with "artistic names" so for the moment I'll have to use just initials.

These are A.'s photos.  

 

I took this photo because I saw a lot of tagging and I saw the nature. There are a lot of trees, the building there on top, a lot of plants. It's just the entrance to go down stairs.

I took this photo because it is interesting. There are a lot of robberies and assaults here. It is violent day and night. Pass through in the morning and one can be assaulted. The photo is important because of Cachorro Sentado, a vila. I don't live in the vila. I just took a photo. 

I thought the shadows that I saw while walking were interesting. I took the photo on the street. I was with people. It is an art. 

These are B.'s photos.

This one has a story but I prefer not to tell it. This photo signifies cruelty that today isn't so common, stepparents are raping innocent children that don't even know the word "sex," children die almost every day as victims of rapes, if people were smart enough they would know who to leave their children with and that's all I wanted to say.

I chose this photo because I thought it was interesting to speak about it. Trash is something that we all produce, but there are people that think the place for trash is on the ground, and it isn't, the place for trash is in the trashcan, because trash outside of the trashcan brings many awful things and some of those are rats and cockroaches, that are very disgusting and sometimes they end up even bringing sicknesses that are not cool.

Graffiti is a divine thing, and there are people that think that graffiti is a crime, because it is very similar to tagging. Graffiti is a cool thing to do because sometimes it is a portrait of some sad realities and other times it is a portrait of cool things like cartoons and other things.

These are E.'s photos.

The graffiti that we in Pro Jovem did, this graffiti is more or less the same, in the letters and in the wild-style.

It was fun to be able to play football and have various friends and be remembering the playing that we did.

I did this design based on a sunset. It is a beautiful flower. It is pretty sunset and a work of art.

A. N. & R. shared a poster board for their photographs.

 

A.N.'s photos.

In this photo, marijuana is being prepared for smoking.

Shocking moment he is smoking a pitico. What is a pitico: (marijuana, crack and tobacco). Don't follow this example. 

In this photo marijuana is being rolled.

R.'s Photos.

This beautiful landscape is giving a beautiful look at a world without violence totally clean.

With inspiration I was able to take but one that called my attention a lot was the graffiti in the light of the sun.

With music we totally forget our problems. Music brings a lot of happiness and joy. 

"Ka$h" hadn't turned in her camera yet to be developed, so she wrote her biography instead:

My name is Ka$h, I live in Morro da Cruz with my mother, stepfather and three brothers. I am 16 years old, I go out, study and do Pro Jovem. My oldest brother is in jail. I like to go out on Fridays after school to converse with my friends. I smoke cigarettes and I drink on the weekends. I live with a drug user but I don't use drugs. Where I live there are drugs all over the place and if I wanted it would be easy to just use them, but I am the fight against "crack."

I love my life and I am never going to use "CRACK."

These kids are awesome and I feel so privileged to have been able to meet them, get to know them and see their wonderfully creativity.

Next up: their photography exhibit at Santander Cultural!

Street Art in POA

The street art of the city of Porto Alegre is rich and fascinating and all over the place. In fact it seems that the majority of photographs that I take here involve art that I come across while moving around the city. While I can tell basic differences between graffiti, murals, stencils, sticker/posters and tagging, I don't always understand the subtleties, politics or meaning behind what I am seeing. There's so much to learn!

I intern in a region of the city called Partenon, where there is a very active drug trade just a few blocks from the office. As a result, I haven't wandered around too much outside of the main streets on my own. But even within the area that I've seen, there's all sorts of great stuff to appreciate on my way to work:

Recently, I was discussing a potential photo project with a couple social workers at the office. One social worker, L. mentioned that she thought having the kids document the graffiti of their neighborhoods would be a great project. She talked about how graffiti and tagging has been such a problem in the area, that shop owners have taken a different tactic. In an effort to prevent their shops being covered with graffiti, they pay graffiti artists to paint murals on their walls.

I love this response, which creates such a different relationship within the neighborhood. As for the photo project, we decided to present the kids with several different ideas and ask them to choose which one they prefer. In any case, I bet it's going to turn out cool!