LETTER FROM RIO
From a distance, we can make out a small playground for children, an unusual installation in the complex of 16 favelas of Maré; one of the largest in Brazil, where nearly 140,000 people live. As we approach, we can only notice the many bullet holes on the walls of the surrounding buildings. And then, to the right of the children’s games, a long set of panels ofazulejos, these white ceramic tiles, painted in shades of blue, hold all the attention, so unique is the art in this pile of bricks and concrete that we have just passed through. The Azulejaria artists’ collective has been working in Maré for seventeen years and this is not their first work. Walking through these narrow alleys and crowded streets, one can come across these ceramic panels made through workshops with locals.
But the installation of the Place de la Paix, as the playground is now called, is very different from the previous ones; it is a memorial to victims of gun violence. “It was one of the most difficult to build, given the emotional charge it represents”, says Laura Taves, artist and creator of the Azulejaria collective. This time, the workshops were carried out with the collective of the mothers of Maré and the families who lost a loved one in this interminable war against drugs.
Most of the 127 victims pictured here were killed in police operations, always a nightmare for favela dwellers. “The police are claiming many victims, as during the last operation, at the end of November, when eight people were killed. She only behaves like this in the favelas, never in formal neighborhoods”explains Patricia Ramalho, responsible for these issues at the NGO Redes da Maré.
157 dead in four years
But there are, in addition to police violence, armed conflicts between the two criminal groups that have always disputed this territory. According to data gathered by the NGO, in four years (from 2017 to 2021), the complex has experienced 132 police operations and 114 confrontations between armed groups, resulting in a total of 157 deaths.
The place of the memorial was not chosen at random and could seem a provocation towards the traffickers. Nothing characterizes it in the eyes of the novice, but it is installed on the “division”, an invisible but very real line and known to all the inhabitants of the complex: the one which separates the territory of the Comando Vermelho from that held by the Tercero Comando. The numerous bullet holes on the surrounding buildings are the result of their war.
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