{"id":43310,"date":"2018-05-10T10:56:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T13:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=43310"},"modified":"2018-05-11T08:52:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-11T11:52:11","slug":"when-the-favela-occupies-the-university-abraco-das-favelas-at-ufrj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=43310","title":{"rendered":"When the Favela Occupies the University: Abra\u00e7o das Favelas at UFRJ"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

From April 24 to 28, the Abra\u00e7o das Favelas<\/a> event brought artistic interventions and debates<\/a>\u00a0to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), an occasion organized by both student and non-student favela residents. The cultural project aimed to occupy the public university, still inaccessible to a large portion<\/a> of youth from Rio de Janeiro’s peripheral areas, in order to give visibility to themes related to favelas.<\/p>\n

The event featured a diverse range of artistic performances from favela residents and local cultural projects<\/a> such as the Orquestra Mar\u00e9 do Amanh\u00e3<\/a>\u00a0orchestra, Projeto DanceGrafia<\/a>\u00a0dance troupe,\u00a0Manguinhos Ballet<\/a>, Dance in Rio<\/a>, Cia. bUsina Teatral<\/a>\u00a0theatre group, among other dance and art presentations. These performances showed the transformative power of art and the importance of its political character in considering social issues. In addition, it was an opportunity to address existing debates around the chaotic situation in which Rio de Janeiro currently finds itself<\/a>, extending the social function of learning at the university.<\/p>\n

One of the event’s special moments was the \u2018Corpo Presente’ (Present Body) performance by Matheus Fraz\u00e3o, a performance arts student at the\u00a0Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro<\/a>\u00a0(UNIRIO) and a resident of Timbau<\/a>, in Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>. In the courtyard of UFRJ’s Faculty of Letters on the afternoon of Thursday April 26, his performance symbolized the life and murder of City Councillor Marielle Franco<\/a>. He began the performance lying on the floor, covered by a black bag with a candle to his side, representing a dead black body<\/a>. As he lay there stretched out on the floor, a recording played a mixture of mainstream media outlets reporting on violence interspersed with sounds representing the silencing of favela voices. At one point, the sound transformed into African-inspired music mixing feelings of sadness and strength which, alongside his choreography and cries of “Marielle,” alluded to how mourning transforms into struggle.<\/p>\n

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

On his performance, Fraz\u00e3o explained: \u201cHow can I let my voice out, how can I show my indignation and at the same time say that when we are in mourning, we are fighting<\/a>?\u2026 I work with this symbolism of fire, with this dead body, drawing on news content. And always with the [chaotic] noise between the two because this represents our silencing<\/a>. We are always silenced and we know the mass media does not represent us. There is much more alienation than supplying factual information.”<\/p>\n

Although his performance was impactful, Fraz\u00e3o felt a distance between the university audience and himself as the artist, in contrast to when he performed for residents of Mar\u00e9.<\/p>\n

“When I performed this for the first time I was performing in Mar\u00e9. There was a greater closeness and even a question of energy\u2026 What group is this that’s watching? Is it a group that’s vibing, that believes the same things? I don\u2019t know, I just felt some disconnect here. The interaction is totally different. I think this represents the university-favela relationship<\/a>, right, a gap. We know only too well that we have a really remote chance of getting into college,\u201d Fraz\u00e3o reflected.<\/p>\n

Among the discussions organized at the event, topics ranged from the federal military intervention<\/a>, Pacifying Police Units<\/a> (UPPs), the trajectory of black women’s resistance, and alternative media. On Thursday, April 26, students and professors from the\u00a0Col\u00e9gio Pedro II\u00a0(CPII) public school\u2014a group that included some favela residents\u2014presented the documentary\u00a0Pacifica\u00e7\u00e3o? As UPPs e a viol\u00eancia no RJ<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Pacification? The\u00a0UPPs<\/a>\u00a0and Violence in Rio de Janeiro), which was produced as part of the CPII\u2019s Critical Cinema project<\/a>. The discussion panel featured CPII teacher Jo\u00e3o Braga, the Provid\u00eancia<\/a>\u00a0favela resident who participated in the film, Cosme Filippsen<\/a>, and former CPII student Mike Ribeiro. The film, which featured interviews with favela residents, politicians, academics, and public security<\/a> officials conducted between 2014 and 2017, unites stories and data to create a broad and clear panorama of the impact of the UPPs on favelas and on public security in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

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

The \u201cWhat is alternative media<\/a>\u201d discussion also took place on Thursday April 16, and featured community journalists Rene Silva from Voz das Comunidades<\/a>, Naldinho Louren\u00e7o from Mar\u00e9 Vive<\/a>, and Carlos Gon\u00e7alves from O Cidad\u00e3o<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0The panel criticized coverage of favelas by mainstream media<\/a>, which rarely feature news from these spaces and when they do are very selective. According to the participants, despite the high number of favelas in the city and the large part of the population that lives in these spaces, the rare news reports on favelas are always linked to the issue of violence and always focus on the same favelas, generating a single discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the role of community media<\/a> comes in, to cover and show what\u2019s really going on in these places,\u201d Silva from Vos das Comunidades says, pointing out that mainstream media only seek out community media sources when something to do with public security happens, reinforcing all the stigmas surrounding favelas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of the conventional media approach that came under criticism was the lack of interest in showing favelas as sites of potential<\/a>, as places with cultural and social projects and resident engagement. Furthermore, there is a constant appropriation of specific events to validate the oppressive approach towards favelas<\/a>, specifically in regards to public security, as if it were something positive. The experiences shared by the panelists showed this is a constant fight for favela residents: to debunk the simple discourse that the police occupation of favelas is an effective way to combat violence<\/a> and a legitimate public security policy.<\/p>\n

Don’t miss our photo-essay and album of the Abra\u00e7o das Favelas event<\/a>.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas From April 24 to 28, the Abra\u00e7o das Favelas event brought artistic interventions and debates\u00a0to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), an occasion organized by both student and non-student […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":43316,"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":[1294,2689,1288,1333,1268,335],"tags":[1361,882,24,396,1653,280,504,320,842,2622,221,2616,602,23,1366,318,144,301,809,453,2323],"writer":[2571],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-mariellelegacy","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-event-reports","11":"category-favelaculture","12":"category-policies","13":"tag-endfavelastigma","14":"tag-academia-x-civil-society","15":"tag-alternative-media","16":"tag-art","17":"tag-community-media","18":"tag-complexo-da-mare","19":"tag-culture","20":"tag-dance","21":"tag-debate","22":"tag-event","23":"tag-favela-culture","24":"tag-favela-vs-asphalt","25":"tag-film","26":"tag-mass-media","27":"tag-analyzing-media-portrayal-of-favelas","28":"tag-performing-arts","29":"tag-morro-da-providencia","30":"tag-public-policy","31":"tag-public-security","32":"tag-stigma","33":"tag-ufrj","34":"writer-priscilla-mayrink","35":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43310","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=43310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}