Brazil’s favelas have long been a source of visual inspiration for artists, photographers and filmmakers. All too often, however, these visual depictions tend to remain on the surface of the dangerous conditions and means of survival in difficult circumstances. Young photographer Iris Della Roca offers a different perspective on the favelas and surprises with candid yet joyful images of children, creating a visual exposé filled with determination.
Entitled “As the king is not humble, may the humble be king!” Della Roca says her exhibition refers to the fact that “since the powerful aren’t interested by the weak, the weak need to work to be stronger than them. It reflects the society of Rio de Janeiro, where very few people are worried about the people in the favelas. In the press, fashion or even on television, people from lower social classes (90% of whom are black) are not well represented. For once, they are getting into the spotlight.” The exhibition, held at La Vallée Village through January 8, 2012, is therefore a timely capsule of Della Roca’s oeuvre and philosophy. But more than that, it is an uplifting record of her life and work in Rocinha, Brazil’s largest favela, as an unpaid volunteer with the ‘Swap a weapon for a paintbrush’ charity (Rocinha Mundo da arte).
Della Roca’s work focuses on the children of Rocinha. her goal is to go beyond the stereotypes of crime and misery in order to make room for the children’s creativity. The children were shown the work of fashion photographers in magazines such as Vogue and Numéro and together with Della Roca, discussed poses and role-play characters. In a way, they created their own fashion magazine. The exhibition is the result of a wonderfully collaborative human and fashion project. We had a chat with Della Roca, who explained us what it takes to live in the biggest favela of South America and to help to realise children’s dreams.
sleek: You studied and worked as a photographer in Paris so far, what motivated you to move to Brazil, especially to Rio de Janeiro?
Iris Della Roca: Going to Rio de Janeiro wasn’t really a specific idea for a projects, it was rather a spontaneous trip after graduating that turned into a long-lasting passion. I just fell in love with Rio’s fusion of contrary impulses. I used to live in the residential quarter of Leblon when I moved to Rio de Janeiro, but I had the impression that I was living in a parallel, very Western universe, without experiencing the city’s other reality. That’s when I decided to move to the Favela do Vidigal, just a stone’s throw away from the Favela da Rocinha, where I finally did my photo project. I am now working on a similar social portraiture project with children of the “hot suburbs” of Paris.
sleek: Was it easy to find kids for a fashion inspired shoot? It must be a rather delicate matter, especially within the framework of a charity…
IDR: It was surprisingly easy, but only this easy because I was working with the right charity. The people at “Swap a weapon for a paintbrush” were non-judgmental and understood the fact that I wasn’t interested in resuming the usual clichés about drugs and violence. Of course it’s shocking when you see children sniffing glue all day long in the streets, and I’m not denying a certain form of misery, but Rio de Janeiro isn’t just black and white, with rich people living next to the beach and the poor dangerous ones living in the favelas. This city is just full of coexisting realities; its good and bad sides just fuse together. The kids I was shooting have an normal childhood: going to school, spending time with family, playing with friends and so on. I chose the favela children to show that they’re just like any other kid in the world, even if they’re constantly confronted with a more or less complicated daily life; they don’t really care about the social pressure surrounding them.
One of my projects was to create a fashion magazine with the kids: of course we wouldn’t have any budget to print it, but we would try to recreate the atmosphere of a fashion shoot together. This was the perfect opportunity for them to express themselves the way they wanted! At the end of the day, whether their families are poor or wealthy, kids just want to live their dreams and have fun, this is what I wanted to express through my portraits.
sleek: Was it a symbolic choice to chose Rocinha over the innumerable favelas? How did people react to your project, especially now that favelas are “cleaned up” by the government?
IDR: Well “cleaned up” indeed, but I’m not sure this was a decision out of pure political correctness, if it wasn’t for the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games, I don’t think the government would have taken such measures. Rocinha wasn’t a specific choice, I just had the chance to meet the founder of “Swap a weapon against a paintbrush” and I started to work for his charity. I had some offensive reactions of people who came to my first exhibition at La Valée Village outside of Paris and who accused me in using the children to create a false impression of the favelas. I wonder if these people actually think before they talk: it’s like I’m only allowed to picture the favela in a miserable way, according to their prejudices. But I don’t really care because the kids and their parents loved it! The kids were crazy about dressing up and acting like a shooting star for one day and I just loved to make them happy!
I don’t take myself too seriously, I mean I wasn’t just there to take pictures of kids and prone some kind of social statement, my main task was to take care of them, to do their cultural education and just have fun altogether. Therefore, the photo project happened very naturally: I’m a big child myself and I just love to express this childish energy through pictures. I’ve always been interested in photojournalism, although I’ve never been able to stick to its strict purpose of being just visual information, with no artistic concept. I do use some elements of photojournalism by adding a social or political dimension to my work, but at the same time I like to go beyond a documentary style and add a certain form of a mise-en-scène to my work, and fashion photography has very expressive and contemporary aesthetics. And moreover, I always take great care in finding a personal dimension in my pictures: I prefer to follow my subjects for a while over a couple of months and even years, than to do just one series of pictures and call it a day. So I am shooting a similar project in the suburbs of Paris right now, but Rio is already calling so I’m going back soon, I miss the kids!