We didn’t believe that we would be able to achieve something with the depth and legacy of our South Africa residency, here in Brazil.  We only had two weeks, there was effectively a zero budget, and of course, there is the language issue to surmount.  We needn’t have worried, what emerged was something beautiful, emotionally charged, playful, political and has made a lasting difference to diverse groups of people and, hopefully, will have an effect on the city here for the future.

Before you go any further, you need to get up to speed by reading about the Catraieiros.  From our first day here we fell in love with these guys, the work they do, their honesty, nobility and strength, and we became more and more determined to make a piece of work with and for them.  The tradition of ferrying people across the bay to and from the island upon which the old city of Vitoria stands, reaches back through time for five hundred years.  Father to son, the knowledge and skills required to do this important job have been handed down, and yet, through rapacious development, financial pressures and an indifferent local government, this tradition, which is at the heart of Vitorian society, is in danger of imminent extinction.  The catraias in which the ferrymen ply their trade are becoming fewer each year, and where scores of the little boats used to go back and forth across the bay, there are now barely a dozen or so.

The catraieros struggle on, charging a mere 2 Reals for their service (about 65p), but the experience of being rowed across the bay, in the open air, chatting to the boatman and the other passengers is a world away from the juddering, overcrowded buses which are the only alternative.  Back and forth they go all day, every day, good humoured and hard working men, but neglected, almost invisible to their fellow citizens, despite their long and proud history, generations and generations of service.  Where their were once half a dozen crossing points, there is now only one, a tiny, yellow walkway down which the half dozen passengers go for each short hop to the other side.

The landing place across the bay in Paul (pronounced pow-oo) shocked us when we first went over.  A crumbling, dilapidated, tumble-down concrete nightmare, stinking of piss, filthy with dirt and dust – a metaphor for the neglect heaped upon the Catraieiros and their boats, the catraias.  Directly across the bay, back in downtown Vitoria is the shining yellow Government building, their Council House, where daily decisions are made – mainly in the name of the dollar, cruel optimism masking the true needs of a people – identity, community, love – why must development always be without a heart?

Our first work created was a film, ‘starring’ one of our catraieiro amigos, Nero.  You can see it below, and it should be quite obvious what it is about.  The poem is by local writer, Cae Guimaraes and uses the words ‘ Mute, I have no voice’ in different orders – the word for mute also means change.

During the first part of the process we created a poem of our own.  Like all of our work, it was a collaboration – an amalgam of words which appeared through our collaborative process, through interviewing people on the street – which we then put together to tell the story:

A life not yet gone

Potential emptiness

Water, like a waiting predator

Development, without heart

Ammonia/Amnesia

This is a rusty place.

Walking, without seeing

Construction/deconstruction

A receding sense of being at home

The blurring of the mirror

And, when water stops, everything stops.

Great feelings don’t have a face, or a form

I ask some questions

And I know I’ve arrived when I feel the breeze

I had to stop typing there for a bit, because I began to cry.  This has been a very emotional time for us, we’ve connected, and connected with, so many people – gone deep very quickly and our hearts have been very much in the work.  This is not the first time I have cried during the process, and I’m a bloke from Smethwick!

So, through the process (you can see the tip of that little iceberg in previous posts), an action began to emerge.  We returned to what we now call ‘Casa Catraia’ – the ammonia-reeking hovel, where the guys repair their boats, again and again.  This is where it would happen.

Processing in the boathouse

The catraieiros, it seemed to us, were having their dignity stripped away from them, and no better metaphor for this was the state of their ‘base’, over here in Paul (remember – pow-oo).  So, we endeavoured to change this, to transform this dilapidated, semi-derelict, graffiti-covered place, into an oasis of beauty.  We started to assemble our troops – the groups we had worked with already – our ‘Catraieiros Group’, the Expurgacao collective.  Other synergies began to emerge.

Our Brummie (and adopted Brummies, Ellis and Riognagh, from Honeyfeet) musicians were around, so we thought we would take advantage of the opportunity.  The amazing artist, Glen Anderson was on hand, and we roped in him, and a bunch of the students he’d been working in from the local University, UFES.

On Thursday afternoon, we set to work – firstly, by cleaning, cleaning,cleaning.  We washed the floor, the walls – everything we could reach.  And then the painting began.  We laid down a coat of thick, white paint over everything in site, and in only a few short hours, with a little help from our friends, a transformation began to occur.

 Everyone worked their socks off, there was an amazing energy – and it was a lot of fun as, over the course of the day, over a score of volunteers pitched in to help.  By the end of day one, things were starting to change.  On Friday morning, we returned to carry on, at first Glen and myself continued laying down the undercoat by ourselves, but were soon joined by our team of willing workers.  The decor started to go on top of the white paint beneath, story after story emerging on the surface of Casa Catraia.

The third, and final day dawned.  This afternoon we would hold a launch party for our manifesto – ‘Development With Heart’. 

But first we had to continue the beautification process.  The students returned, and put the finishing touches to their work.  Glen began making what turned out to be an amazing piece – which our photos do no justice to at all.  Hopefully, either Leon Trimble or Dan Burwood will have done better, we’ll have to wait and see as they are, as I write, somewhere over the Atlantic on their return flight to Brumtown (safe journey, guys).  Glen also wrote the name ‘Catraieiros’ in large, bold, black lettering on the wall, facing Vitoria, a statement – ‘we are here!’.  Everything looked better, no litter, no awful ‘tag graff’ and, best of all, the reek of piss was no longer present.  People began to arrive, lots of locals from the neighbouring favela, artists from across the water, friends and allies, stepping off the boat with expressions of wonder – was this the same place?  How could all this have changed, so much? Musicians came, Honeyfeet, local samba players, DJs Switch and Feva.  Someone ran off and found some decks, a PA appeared – this was crowdsourcing at its best, organic, responsive, authentic. Beer arrived, sold by the lovely lady from the local restaurant, a barbecue was started by the catraieiros – people were smiling, happy.  No more ammonia, no more amnesia, there was life/were lives here – a rebirth in process.  The musicians played, Honeyfeet were, as always amazing, making simple, complex, transformative music, joined by a local sitar player.  I cried again.  The party continued grew, changed – B-boys arrived, capoiera and spinning, hip-hop dancing ensued.  The samba players joined in – it became the best party of the festival.

At the centre of this joyful maelstrom were the catraieiros, always, the catraieiros.  Somehow bigger, smiling more than we had ever seen before, their dignity retained.  Success.  Our work here was done.  Our shoulders relaxed and we began to dance with the best of them, our new-found family surrounding us and suffusing Casa Catraia with joy, laughter, life.  I think I’m going to cry again.

We were supposed to finish at 5pm, but, in true Brazilian fashion we eventually left at 7.30, more and more people appearing out of the boats (we don’t seem to have any photos, think we may have been a little, erm, ‘emotional’ by then).  We were rowed back by Roni (Honi), who had been the first to row us across (was it only 12 days before?), this time accompanied by his wife and three of his children, Sandra’s new best friends.  We were honoured and humbled, satisfied and replete in the knowledge that we had made more ‘Ronseal’ art.  We had done our job.

So, our conclusions, what were we trying to achieve, and did we achieve it?  We wanted to:

• Make the issue of the loss of the catraieiros tradition visible.  We did this literally, by making Casa Catraia over, painting it white, making it colourful.  You can now see it from right across the bay, an oasis amongst the encroaching and overwhelming port – and importantly from the Government building.
• Give the guys back some dignity.  I think we’ve achieved this.  Rather than a piss-stinking hellhole, their base is now a perfect place to relax, to be inside, and for others to use.  Even if they do not survive the developments, at least they can bow out with some pride.  Everyone who crosses, now looks at the place, and hopefully it’s denizens, differently.
• Given the people a chance to make a statement.  People feel overwhelmed by the port and the resource-fuelled development.  They don’t feel that their Government is listening to them, feel they have no power and, consequently little has been done.  Bringing together people to make this action in only a few days, with a budget of near enough zero has proved what is possible if people get together, handed them the opportunity of taking charge of their own lives, if even in a small way.  This is a beginning, and it is now up to them to build on this.  During the event many people said – ‘what a great place to have a book/cd/film launch/barbecue/party/screening ,etc, etc – we hope this was not just the Brahma talking (local beer).
  
• We have created something physically beautiful as well, which hopefully will change, get added to and develop.  The film and the poem are also (IOHO), beautiful works that will last (we got to show the film to hundreds of people on Saturday, it’s online and we will be screening it during Espirito Brum).

We have had an amazing almost two weeks here in Vitoria – none of this would have been possible on our own, so we’d like to give the biggest of big-ups to: Tessa Burwood and Soesen Edan, the Professional Incredibles, Caio Perim who took it upon himself to be our unofficial local guide and project manager, Thiara, Thairo, Rafael and Clara from our Catraieiros group, the Brumziliant crew for pitching in, Glen Anderson and his students for their beautiful work(s), Gabriel Ramos for being consistent, the Expurgacao collective, Instituto Quorum and their tireless workers, Samea, Diani, Marcella and the rest of you, Papo Furado and the Casa Aberta posse for giving us love. Everybody else who helped us, pitched in, begged, borrowed or stole stuff and just joined in joyfully. Thanks.

And of course, the Catraieiros – you’d better still be here when we come back next year, guys.

Peace to all from Sandra, Simon and Lee.  Friction, Art where you live, wherever you live.

Instead, I thought I’d try and fill in some of the blanks with some stories of Vitoria and some of it’s great people.  Vitoria is a relatively small Brazilian city,about half a million strong, putting that into context, greater Sao Paolo has a population of up to 27 million (depending on who you talk to).  The old town (our ‘hood) sits on an island, separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, leading into the bay, surrounded by sprawling suburbs.  It’s one of the busiest ports in Brazil, with huge containers ships coming in and out, and always dozens floating around the sea nearby.  They’ve found a massive oilfield in the sea nearby, someone told us yesterday that it is thought to contain as much oil as all the middle-eastern oilfields put together.  Good news for Vitoria and Brazil – bad news for the planet!

So, as you can imagine, the streets being paved with (black) gold, development here is rapacious.  The port is expanding massively, refineries are being built nearby, and the city is growing rapidly.  What was a sleepy seaside port town is turning into an important centre for commerce.  One of the people we worked with talked about ‘development without heart’ – which is an apt phrase as the rush by the Government to capitalise on it’s new found wealth is leaving many people and local traditions behind.  Money is on many people’s minds almost obsessively – Tessa, who is a fluent Portuguese speaker, noted that almost every conversation she has had with locals has been flavoured with the subject.  But not everyone, thankfully.

There are a lot of local artists and activists who are concerned with how things are going, and are trying in many ways to stem the financial-obsession tide, and to hold on to the many good things about the city.  Trouble is, they seem to feel a bit swamped by it all, ignored by the powers that be – rabbits in the headlights.  This is what our intervention is all about, and, hopefully will help some of these great people take charge of their own destinies, with a little help from their friends.  But more about that in a couple of days.

After 10 days or so in town, we’ve become part of the furniture already.  Brazilians are nothing if not open, friendly and incredibly generous (if a little ‘relaxed’ about things) – and we’ve been welcomed with open arms.  The ‘Old Town’, dear old Centro is a little Digbeth-y, with many artists, musicians and the like inhabiting it’s dimly lit streets – and, like all artistic communities, it’s a village in itself.  There’s a lot of colonial architecture, uneven pavements, churches and balustraded (probably not a word) stairways around, in amongst newer, less attractive buildings.  It’s a bit grubby, dark, and we’re told, a bit dodgy – though I have to say I haven’t felt it, but that may be due to my ‘crack-addict chic’ approach to my appearance.  Walking through the streets at night we run the gauntlet of kissing, hugging and backslapping new Brazilian buddies.  When you leave anywhere, you have to plan for at least ten minutes or so to end the conversation and walk away, ‘cos they don’t want you to go and (sometimes physically) will use every strategy in the book to keep the conversation going.  Sometimes we pray that we can hit one of the bars without seeing anyone we know, just to have a quick drink and do one – which I can’t remember happening since the first day we got here.

There’s some great people, and characters inhabiting the area.  Papo Furado is a case in point.  We met him on the first day, an 80-something icon of the local samba school – who seem to spend all day, every day, sitting outside one bar or another, drinking, shooting the breeze and, above all, making fantastic music in an effortless way.  Papo and Sandra immediately connected – she sang ‘I am stretched on your grave’ into his ear (he is pretty much blind) and it was love at first song.  He’s an amazing musician, putting soul into every song he sings, and plays on his ‘too wee’ guitar.  He carries a ‘bag of wonders’ from which he seems to pull an endless amount of odd, and usually amusing, objects.  Taking the piss out of mobile phone-obsessed youngsters, he would pull out a crab’s claw and start having a conversation on it.  Yesterday. someone asked him for a light and, as he flicked the switch on his lighter, out popped a perfectly formed miniature erect penis.  He is our kind of guy.  We were honoured last night to be invited over for a fantastic fish-stew dinner with him and his cronies at Casa Oberta,who were all still playing, drinking beer and cachaca (firewater) when we had to make our excuses and leave in the wee small hours.

We’re going to be very sad to leave next Wednesday

We’ll be back after the weekend- in the meantime, more pictures!

We began the process by meeting our group at the Catraeiros landing place in Pao – a broken-down concrete shelter, tagged and smelling strongly of piss, dwarfed by the ships coming in and out of the port.  The first part of the process is internal, reflective – to generate images and emotions we then make into our interventions (if you want to know how – you’ll have to pay us!)- here’s some pictures – with a few random ones from the weekend thrown in -

The second part of the process took the group into the old town to work in a more external way – which was quite challenging – especially as we expected it to be busy in town, it being Saturday, only to find that most people head back to the suburbs at the weekend and there weren’t too many people about.  It still went well, though and, heads buzzing, we went our separate ways to sit with what we had learned.  Two days later we got the group together again to process further, resulting in this -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAjojQJoQFo

The results were amazing, you could almost see people’s heads expanding.  They were amazed in what we had managed to achieve in a few days, saying that they wouldn’t believe it was possible without months of research and development.  We’ve really refined our techniques over the years, bringing in influences from all of the work we have done, all the people we have worked with and the process is now really tight and focused.  Each time of course it is different, and responds well to different contexts – often we have to rethink the process halfway through, in response to the results, and I think this is where our skill and experience really come to the fore. It’s funny, but we rarely get the chance to work like this back home in Blighty, possibly because we generally have more time – but we are determined to try and work like this more often.

We still want to keep the results secret for now, at least until after the weekend, but we should be able to post something up before we return next week.  As ever, watch this space.

Later we went to the studio of coletivo Expurgacao – just a few doors up, in the old town, where we are staying at the offices of Instituto Quorum.  We’d been told it was ‘just next door’, but we’d been misled in this way a number of times – just down the road meaning a half-hour bus ride away – but on this occasion we were pleased to discover it was true, just a few metres up the road we found a lovely old building, painted a nice shade of blue and received a very warm welcome from the collective.  Meetings in Brazil inevitably begin and end with a round of hand-shaking (traditional and ghetto-style), hugs and kisses – very different from our more staid and uptight approach back home.  Fortunately, we’re not very British in that regard, so join in wholeheartedly and this physical connection you get with people means that you connect very differently.  We might start trying it back home more, it might make those meetings with funders more fun – I can already imagine the stiffness and uncomfortable smiles masking the sense of horror beneath.

The studio was great, very ‘Edgy’, reminding us of home – lots of art and equipment all over the place, and a sense of energy and can-do-itness permeating the place.  We had a fun talk with the guys there, with much arm-waving and passion on show from all sides, with several of the crew fortunately speaking excellent English.  Communication has been an issue for us, few people here speaking English, other than artists and the better-educated classes, unsurprisingly.  Luckily we’ve been blessed by having very committed translators on hand, though on a number of occasions one side or the other has lost some concepts in translation.  We are determined to be fluent next time we visit, so we’ll be better able to access a wider constituency of people.  I had a great chat with Chico about the favelas and we discussed how actually those kinds of places can be a lot safer than richer areas, if you fit in.  Most violence is between rival gangs, drug dealers, etc – you’re more likely to be mugged in middle-class areas where you might be targeted for what you carry.  If you look right (and we do, Si’s always being mistaken for a local and nice people tend to clutch their bags tighter when I walk past), nobody’s likely to bother you and we’re experts in when to, and not to, make eye contact, look like you know where you’re going (even when you don’t) and all the little survival traits we’ve picked up working in ‘difficult’ areas at home and abroad.

Anyway, the upshot is, we’ve decided to continue our work on two fronts: the catraeiros and the abandoned buildings/regeneration issues.  We’re going to get together two groups of artists and other interested parties and design a collaborative process for each, to develop two separate interventions/performances/artworks to be distributed at next weekend’s festival.  The main problem is going to be keeping the numbers manageable, as our Brazilian buddies are taking the opportunity of working with us very enthusiastically, so we’re limiting each group to ten participants.  Watch, as they say, this space.

We ended the evening with a meal at a very cheesy Mexican-themed restaurant, where the waiters served you wearing wrestling masks, which was a bit disturbing to be perfectly honest.  It was Sandra’s birthday and at the end of the meal Happy Birthday came over the sound system and she was presented with a desert, complete with sparkler – cheesy, but kind of nice.

Ciao

• Self-service caffs – which work on a pay-by-weight system, confusing for us at first, but ultimately fair and simple
• Decision-making – make a decision, have a heated debate for half an hour and then do it anyway
• Brazilian time – flexible to say the least
• A relaxed attitude to lane discipline whilst driving, but zero road rage on show
• Buying stuff can be complicated – order and pay at one place, get your stuff at another, kind of like Argos for everything
• Great food,crap beer and watch out for the cachaca
• None of the above necessarily applies all the time

So, we’re learning, day by day and of course, that’s just the tip of the old iceberg.  Most of the people we’ve met have been more than welcoming and more than generous, with a ‘my house is your house’ approach to getting to know you.  We really wish we could speak more Portuguese and, Inshallah we will when we return.  Here’s some piccies:

Our last night was spent with our new friends Hamilton and Isabella in their self-built house in the woods.  We’re spending most of our time in urban areas, but this was Brazil as you imagine it, we were woken with birdsong and monkeys frolicking in the trees, huge neon butterflies after sleeping to the music of the crickets (but no Buddy Holly).  Hamilton teaches music composition to vulnerable kids, and Isabella works for a kind of Creative Partnerships agency, placing artists in schools and the like, and we’re keeping in contact to see what we can make happen next time.  Hamilton also makes some beautiful music,with a kind of Brazilian folky, almost medieval sound, which we enjoyed whilst he was trying to commit homicide by barbecue.  A special evening with some special people, including ‘The Fletch’, Saolo, his wife Sylvia and four year old Simon-groupie, Nina – complete with eco sauna and plunge pool – heavenly.  The next day we had to finally say goodbye to Gladys and Gilberto.  Five of us have been staying in their small apartment for over a week and they have been incredibly generous – it’s almost like we were no trouble, which I’m sure we were, though you would never know from their wonderful, generous attitude.  It’s a love thing, and at least we get to see Gilberto for a couple of days next week, when he comes to Vitoria for Espirito Mundo.

I’ve also got  to mention here the incredibly professional work by the Incredible Professionals, Tessa Burwood and Soesen Edan.  The Espirito Brum project is down to their hard work and dedication, getting the resources to bring a dozen and a half Brummie artists and musicians over here, organising, cat-herding and connecting Brazilian and Brummie culture together.  And massive big-ups to Tessa (Tey-sa in Brazil-speak) for constantly and generously translating both ways.  It;’s another love thing, too.

Finally, for now, we arrived in Vitoria last night (Gilberto escorting us right up to airport security, bless him) to – nobody.  We were a bit concerned at first, but waited, and of course it was that Brazil time issue again.  Soon we were met by young, enthusiastic and lovely fellows, Gabriel and Rafael who have been our minders for the last 24 hours and took us on a whistle-stop tour of the city.  Vitoria feels very different to BH – it’s a huge port for a start, which is rapidly expanding and a big issue in itself.  It also feels better off, a bit less grubby, a bit less graffitti-covered, a bit more chilled.  We were taken to the offices of Instituto Quorum, where they’ve turned a back office into a mini-apartment for the three of us, which is a little weird, but great as it means we’re right in the middle of the old town area, where we’ll be working.  This morning we were taken on a short boat trip with one of the catraeiros – boatmen who row across the bay as a sort of ferry service.  These are being supplanted by the ubiquitous, crowded buses and are an old tradition here.  We instantly planned and started to organise our first intervention – an outdoor barbecue party to bring together many of the catraeiros with artists, architects and engineers, to capture stories, photographs and archive material related to this vanishing breed.  We want to make some huge photoprints, posters, etc to display around the city alongside some story text, to bring focus onto the issue – then to respond the next week to this.  That was within the first couple of hours of being here – so who knows what will come up next?  Tonight we are hosting a dinner with a group of artists and activists in a really fantastic space nearby.  From what we can gather, the lady who runs the place opens her house up to artists, where they can show and sell work, crafted objects and just hang out – it’s a beautiful space, currently showing a full-on exhibit of photographic portraits of women at the moment they give birth.  Outside, as it’s a holiday, members of the local samba school (the mother of all samba schools, we were told) were hanging out, drinking and playing music and word soon got out that the English were in town – cue a procession of people trying out their english on us.

We heart Brazil, or something.  Ciao for now.

Next up, just around the corner from Gilberto’s place, we experienced an Umbanda meeting.  Umbanda is the local variation of many Brazilian mystical traditions.  A melange of African, western and native traditions, we were told in no uncertain terms that it was not a religion,but a way of channeling or contacting the ‘other’, the mystical ‘spirits’ which influence our lives.  We were welcomed in and went down into what amounted to a car porch, where about a dozen or so men and women, dressed in white, had begun to gather, watched by a ‘congregation’ of about 50 or so locals.  Chanting and drumming ensued, with the white-clad protagonists smoking, drinking and laughing in order to welcome the spirit of Ishu (a Pan-like entity) into them – there should be more spiritual sessions like that!  They then chose people from the congregation to come up where they would use the channeled power to give them reiki-like healing or advice from the spirits in a clairvoyant way.  No money changes hands, so worries I had of the vulnerable being exploited were at least partially allayed, and, well, whatever floats your boat I suppose.  Couldn’t help referring to it as Umbongo, though, in typically irreverent Friction style.

We ended the evening by eventually (getting around can take a lot of time and energy here), hooking up with some of the people coming over for Espirito Brum in September.  Cues several hours of drinking, chatting, dancing and laughing, ending up with a lock-in at a local jazz club, where we got thrown out at about 5 am.  Our life is so shit sometimes

So that’s what we did, but what have we been thinking about?

Money – Brazil’s burgeoning economy means that many people have a fair bit of disposable income – one of our friends pointed out that people need to be taught what to do with this, rather than chucking it around just buying stuff.  This new-found economic power could be used to lever rights and services, rather than just going into the coffers of corporations.  But how?

Safety – despite the armed carjacking outside our flat the other day, we haven’t felt at all unsafe – we’re in a working class neighbourhood, rather than a very poor favela, but we’re pretty experienced and streetwise and know not to be complacent.  There is a fair bit of violence about, even if this isn’t the City of God, as it were.

Social segregation.  As I suspected there is a racial social divide – the poorest tend to be darker-skinned and the richer tend to be paler.  I say tend, because it isn’t exclusively so, even though that racial divide seems to occur the world over – aren’t we all sick of it yet, and how and when are we going to get past it?

OK – we’ll post some photos of the day later, Sandra’s gone out to see Mendhi perform and taken the camera, but check out our flickr  later on, to see what we’ve been up to – apart from the Umbanda, we do have some respect, after all.

One of the reasons our festival partners, Instituto Quorum, set up the exchange with their European partners was to dispel myths about Brazilian culture – it’s not all samba and carnival, there’s loads of fantastic contemporary work being made here.  In fact, from what I’m beginning to learn from our local buddies, there seems to already be a very strong tendency to make artwork that is participatory, or in the public realm, and has a political or social focus – which of course is music to our ears.  We’re hooking up with a couple of artist groups whilst we’re here in BH, including a group of ‘Fools’ that work in some of the most difficult areas.  Even though we’re not having to make work here in BH, we’re thinking of a couple of interventions we could do this weekend, as part of Gilberto’s festival, which he’s putting on in a fantastic 30 hectare park which the crew visited yesterday.

We’re really enjoying staying with Gilberto and Gladys, and, rather than being irritated by having four English people staying in her small flat, Gladys keeps introducing us as angels that have been sent to stay with her, which is beautiful, and also rather embarrassing, as we think we’re being hosted by a couple of angels ourselves.  So, angels are becoming a bit of a theme for the visit, and influencing our thinking on how we might make some statements about what we are experiencing over here. There’s a sense of magic and mysticism over here, that seems different from home, as well, which I think is related to the mashup of various religious and mystical movements from this diverse country, from Catholicism, African traditions and the native religions.  So people are more open to some kind of sense of wonderment, while at the same time being very practical and concrete.  That old cliche of a ‘land of contradictions’ – which you could probably apply to anywhere, one way or another.

I wonder what adventures, and what we will learn today.  Check back in a couple of days and find out.

So, Brazil, then.  We’re not exactly going ‘up the Amazon’ – in fact, looking at our schedule, we’ll be lucky if we get out of the cities at all, but we’re having our own expedition of a kind and have been observing, questioning and enquiring – and engaging – as we always try to do.  One of my first impressions was of the sheer number of people in the cities here.  BH is a relatively small city, but still it feels crowded, and people seem to find a way to navigate this.  Despite the warnings, I can’t say I’ve felt particularly unsafe yet – though we haven’t been to the very poorest parts of town, yet, we’ve still had encounters with street people and in our firm and friendly way , have managed to get past potential problems with a smile and a shake of the head.  All of us have travelled extensively and have enough confidence to not seem nervous or afraid – and this can count for a lot.  The way we look helps, our appearance, the ethnic and age mix all serve as a kind of camouflage, which works here as well as it does in the places we work back at home.

There’s clearly a huge wealth gap here, with the rich and poor living cheek by jowl in the city, and a host of other issues – domestic abuse, child abuse, poverty, rape, drugs, violence, and all the other kinds of stuff you expect.  I think I saw my first dead street person today, which disturbed me immensely – he was lying still, filthy and emaciated on a side street right in the centre of town.  His eyes rolled back, limbs twisted and people just walked past, about their own business – I felt entirely helpless, unable to do anything, and just kept walking myself.  I was told by one of my Brazilian buddies that this is not uncommon, but that the street people here are pretty much invisible to the rest of the population – maybe there’s something we can do with that issue – how do we make them visible?  So since then, I’ve been observing these ‘lost souls’ – and wondering how, when ostensibly there is wealth around,  people can literally ignore this very ‘in your face’ tragedy occurring daily.

Other impressions – well, there’s graff everywhere, some of it really high quality.  Loads of gang signs on buildings, often in seeming impossible places – they look kind of runic, like someone’s trying to cast loads of spells on places. It’s almost more interesting when you don’t see any – why’s that, how has that place escaped the ubiquitous tagging?  I’m trying to work out if there’s an ethnic heirarchy – Brazil has been multicultural from the get-go, but of course started as a colony of Portugal – so is there any remnant of that remaining?  Not quite sure, yet, but I sense there is – but my Spideysense has been known to be wrong, so I’ll let you know as more information flows in.

Here’s some first 24 hours or so pictures -

Tickets £6 / £ 4 adv

Even though Friction Arts is going to Brazil for a month or so, The Edge will be still alive and hosting other artists. Sound Kitchen will come to feed our ears with their program of eclectic music. An evening of live improvisation, instruments and electronics with De Type Inconnu, a duo featuring Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (Huddersfield) and Sylain Pohu (Montreal) that are coming to Digbeth with “lots of strings, lots of sounds, lots of notes, lots of noise and lots of styles” and Rodrigo Constanzo, a Spanish-American performer and composer living in Manchester, who is an avid improviser and will come with a modified drum kit augmented by home made electronic instruments.

You can visit Sound Kitchen for more information on the artists and the evening or to book tickets in advance.

Hope to see you around!