{"id":29976,"date":"2016-06-28T16:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=29976"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:04:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T17:04:02","slug":"with-traditional-june-cultural-festivities-vila-autodromo-celebrates-memory-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=29976","title":{"rendered":"With Traditional June Cultural Festivities, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo Celebrates Memory and Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Like many other favelas in Rio, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a> hosted its own Arrai\u00e1\u2013a traditional celebratory cultural event in June. In contrast to typical\u00a0festivals, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s celebration featured, above all else, a message of hope, memory<\/a> and resistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, June 25, about 80 current and former residents, local activists and supporters gathered in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo to celebrate the community\u2019s years of resistance<\/a> and struggle for their rights with a day of music, food and dancing.<\/p>\n

The community, located in Barra da Tijuca<\/a> in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>, has spent more than five years fighting eviction<\/a> linked to the development of the main Olympic<\/a> facility bordering their territory. Their fight has been long and painful<\/a>. Just 20 families remain on the land that once housed some\u00a0700 families. These residents recently negotiated with the city government<\/a>\u00a0for the construction of\u00a0new homes for them on their land, scheduled to be completed by next month, just a few days before the start of the 2016 Olympics next door.<\/p>\n

Under colorful flags and lights strung from a tent at the entrance to the community\u2019s one remaining street, residents of all ages ate, danced and chatted late into the evening, as children dressed in the plaid dresses and straw hats typical of such June celebrations dashed around, laughing and chasing their friends.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Dona Dalva<\/a>, 82, sat with a friend in plastic chairs, close to the table where residents offered cake and caipirinhas to attendees. Dalva, one of the community\u2019s oldest residents and a powerful example of resistance<\/a>, smiled as she watched the children and dogs play under the tent.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has hope now that things are going to go well,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter so much suffering, the people here deserve [to celebrate].\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalva spoke of\u00a0the event as an opportunity for the community to \u201creclaim our rights\u201d and expressed hope that others might follow Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s example.<\/p>\n

Hope and the right to territory were strong themes of the day throughout the crowd at the Arrai\u00e1.<\/p>\n

Larissa Lacerda, a member of the Popular Committee on the World Cup and Olympics<\/a>, has spent two years working with the community of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis event is a reaffirmation of the territory, of the preservation of memory, where residents and their supporters can meet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She described events like the Arrai\u00e1\u00a0and the ongoing construction of memory, through projects such as the Evictions Museum<\/a>, as a way\u00a0of changing the narrative about the community, challenging the story told by the City government about Vila Aut\u00f3dromo and the many other communities in Rio that have experienced forced evictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s another way of telling the story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

At 7pm, after several hours of music and socializing, attendees gathered under the tent to watch a series of short documentary films about evictions and Rio\u2019s favelas.<\/p>\n

The first film, Remo\u00e7\u00f5es<\/em><\/a> (Evictions), was introduced by its director, Luis Carlos de Alencar. The 26-minute short, produced by political film production company Couro de Rato<\/a> and human rights nonprofit Global Justice<\/a>, is part of a mini-series, Contagem\u00a0Regressiva\u00a0<\/em>(Countdown), which aims to show\u00a0some of the social impacts of the Olympics mega-event on the city of Rio. Remo\u00e7\u00f5es<\/em> featured interviews with residents of favelas from across the city, including Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, and powerful footage\u00a0of the destruction of the communities’ homes.<\/p>\n

The second film, Museu da Mar\u00e9<\/em>, made by a group of architecture and urbanism students from the Anhanguera University, presented\u00a0an overview of the unique Mar\u00e9 museum<\/a> and its various\u00a0projects. The museum, created in 2006 by a group of residents of Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a> in Rio’s North Zone<\/a>, is committed to the preservation of favela memory, and was recognized as a tourist attraction by Rio de Janeiro state<\/a> in 2014.<\/p>\n

The last of the short documentaries, Irm\u00e3o do Morro<\/em><\/a>, produced by local communications collective N\u00facleo Piratininga de Comunica\u00e7\u00e3o<\/a>, told the story of the relationship between the S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 Oper\u00e1rio community in Pra\u00e7a Seca<\/a> in the West Zone and Dutch priest Padre Frank, framed against the community\u2019s process of political organization and fight\u00a0to affirm its housing rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Construction<\/a><\/p>\n

The event also featured an exhibition of photos from the Olympic Revelations photography prize<\/a>, a competition sponsored by the Popular Committee and the Observatory of Urban Conflict<\/a> at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UFRJ). The striking photos, displayed at the entrance to Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, offered a diverse view of the impact on communities and rights violations in\u00a0the leadup to the Rio Olympics.<\/p>\n

The Arrai\u00e1 in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo is the latest in a series\u00a0of events under the Occupy Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a> banner. In this campaign, events are held in the community to show the world that a strong community spirit still remains in the favela, as well as to demonstrate support for the remaining residents. These events have included cultural festivals<\/a>, soccer tournaments<\/a>\u00a0and book launches<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the background of this latest event, the new homes for residents were under construction. In a landmark deal with the mayor<\/a>\u2013the first collectively signed relocation agreement in favela history\u2013the remaining residents will each be given a newly built home in the community. While the victory remains heavily\u00a0imperfect<\/a>, as some residents who had been evicted and wanted to return to Vila Aut\u00f3dromo will not be able to<\/a>, and many who left feel taken advantage of<\/a>, those that remain are pleased with the progress on their new homes, which are due to be finished in time for the Olympics, and intend to maintain the community as a site of organizing\u00a0beyond the Games.<\/p>\n

\"June<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Like many other favelas in Rio, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo hosted its own Arrai\u00e1\u2013a traditional celebratory cultural event in June. In contrast to typical\u00a0festivals, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s celebration featured, above all else, a message […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":30022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1854,1288,1290,1333,1268,1329],"tags":[225,504,2032,221,2106,11,26,3000,1259,5,270,1938,4,21],"writer":[2104],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-housingwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-civilsociety","11":"category-event-reports","12":"category-favelaculture","13":"category-by-international-observers","14":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","15":"tag-culture","16":"tag-evictions-museum","17":"tag-favela-culture","18":"tag-festa-junina","19":"tag-forced-evictions","20":"tag-housing-rights","21":"tag-justica-global","22":"tag-mega-events","23":"tag-olympics","24":"tag-resistance","25":"tag-rio-2016","26":"tag-vila-autodromo","27":"tag-west-zone","28":"writer-natalie-southwick"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29976"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=29976"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=29976"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=29976"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=29976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}