2/22/12We decided to take a trip off the beaten path today and visit a small community called Santa Marta. Santa Marta is a big hill favela, or shantytown, that has taken on a challenge to turn the place into one of the greatest community driven artworks of our time. That challenge is called O Morro, meaning “The Hill”, created by an artistic duo of Haas & Hahn.
Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn are the two Dutch designers who started O Morro because of their love for the community and art. Their idea in O Morro was to use a flexible concept of colorful rays, which can easily be expanded, on the houses around the square and local samba school. The coolest part is that the inhabitants help out by receiving instruction on how to paint the buildings, then actually painting their little block, and lastly getting a paycheck after all their hard work. So far, only a small portion of the community has been painted, but Haas & Hahn plan to take the project all over the hill and eventually end up with about 7000 square meters of hillside slum turned into a new monument for the community. This is the beginning of Jeroen and Dre’s journey to bring outrageous works of art to unexpected places, such as the painting of enormous murals in the slums of Brazil with local youth. I think it’s a very inspirational project and if more like it were started around the world, a few more missing paychecks could be earned by those in need. Plus, the world could use a little more color. Jeroen and Dre have proven to be artistic heroes by not only making Rio a more unique place, but also by using art to help those in the community. Anna wanted a design like this painted on her bedroom walls at home.These few bright buildings reminded Wini of the sunrise and took the slum out of this neighborhood.
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