Art Everywhere- The Flavela Painting Project

I love this project. The idea of drawing attention to the beauty which exists in every part of the world, while empowering a community, is true art.
This vision, by two Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, is to create beauty in unexpected places.  Brazil, is South America’s largest country and a third of it’s 200 million people live in favelas (slums).
After working on a project together in 2005, about hip hop in the favelas of Rio and São Paolo, they came up with the idea to ‘bring outrageous works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.’

Their first project called The Flavela Painting Project used ‘the idea of creating community-driven art interventions in Brazil and yielded two murals which were painted in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio's most notorious slum.' For the projects a group of local flavela dwellers trained and worked as painters thus providing them with skills and jobs.

Art which empowers a local community to feel pride for their community is true beauty.

To learn more about past/present projects and the artists-click this.

Have you ever participated in a community art project?