Vidigalo: it's Vidigal's 100 Secrets
Founded by a german and a portuguese, the design studio Vidigalo launches the first touristic map of a favela; the idea is to eliminate the division between the "hill" and the "asphalt".
Get to the Vidigal via Niemeyer, head up Avenida Presidente João Goulart, pass by the Ninho do Urubu, make right at Pastel do Céu and when you get to the street of Carlão's bar, you"ll -- easily find the house where Vidigalo is located, a design and communication studio founded by the german André Koller and the portuguese Gonçalo Pires - both already very “brasilian”. However, for those you are not used to walking around through Vidigal, this task would not be so easy, since the place, besides of the old stereotype of being considered a risk-area, -- doesn't present any clear identifications of the streets and its alleys. -- It didn't present any, speaking in the past tense, because in fact these two guys, who have been living in the Vidigal for two years, decided to start theproject of maping the community with the idea of sharing what this community has to offer to its visitors as well as to locals. With this idea the first touristic map of Vidigal was born, entitled "Vidigal 100 Segredos" ("100" and "sem (without)" sound identical spoken in portugese" . "We wanted to promote our work and our studio, with something that was useful for the community and which could help diminish the general prejudice towards favela-communities. I always enjoyed working with info-graphics, and the idea of mapping the community seemed a good option, since it is something that has been missing here so far. Besides, it allows the local habitants to seethemselves and where they live, and it has the potencial to encourage local commerce and cultural activities", states Andre, who also jokes: "Not too long ago not even Sedex got delivered at my place".
After two months of work and no sponsoring, private or public, André decided to seek support inside the community offering local businesses to advertise on the the back of the map to cover printing costs. Furthermore, the map gained a symbolic value of R$3,00. Vidigalo still hands out the maps for free, thus giving the local advertisers the option to recover their investment by selling the material.
On paper, without the climbs and the places of difficult access, the task of mapping appears fairly easy and simple, but in fact the challenge was hard and the result of a lot of sweat- literally. "The main difficulty I encountered was the lack of support. Companies (like Sheraton) and public institutions didn't seem to be interested in investing in this project. The map has a price to prevent people throwing it away and so that it can serve as source of income for the children of the community, for example, who can sell the map to tourists to be able to buy an ice-cream, a kite or whatever they want, declares the “carioca” from Wolfsburg, who left Germany ten years ago, and today is already in fact brazilian.
Beside the lack of sponsoring the map with an edition of 4000 copies faced other adversities. Cataloguing of the many little alleys and streets with open sky sewers, not even catalogued by government institutions, was tricky. Also, the rapid transformation of local businesses- Jo's car repair shop, transforms it´s space into a location for alternative parties (A Lamparina) on the weekends -- . While walking up and down the hills, the expeditionary André found a lot of places of difficult access, participated in baptising of some bars who didn´t even have a name yet- like Ana's- faced the distrust of some shop-owners and got aware of alot of interesting projects and people, like he shared with us: “Vidigal has its own divisions as well, the higher part (invaded) and the bottom part (planned) present a lot of contrast. Not long ago, the avenue divided the hill, each side dominated by rival gangs dealing arms and drugs. But, in general, it's a community very rich in its diversity. There are a lot of cultural spots- such as Vidigal's Theater and "Nós do Morro",- there are a lot of artists and people connected to cultural events who live here and are interested in developing that side of the community. Many things have already changed for the better since I got here, and certainly in the near future Vidigal will turn even more accessible to tourism, another motive for this project. The region is evolving fast economically, and you can see that in the current optimism of the people here. But, what is most important, -- the community received our initiative with open arms and proved very active assisting us with the project of the map."
The idea of mapping Vidigal, which not long ago would have represented a serious threat to life, today represents the social inclusion of the communitiy, once dominated by druglords and abandoned by the government for decades. "The majority of maps are made to show territorial limits, but Vidigal 100 secrets intends the opposite, it seeks to eliminate the boundaries that divide the favela and the rest of the city", declares the german. After two years operating in the Vidigal, and before releasing the second edition of the map (in august), studio Vidigalo still participates in other projects within the community, like the patnership with VDGTV – Vidigal television -, the ecological park Sitiê and a cultural event in the Armazém de Ideia, where every friday Gonçalo lets lose his musical side and participates in a jam session with the local band Cacumbú. So it's time to get the map and explore Vidigal!
*In 18th June, the official day of Rio+20 visit to Vidigal, the map of the studio Vidigalo will have seven extra large copies mounted at different locations of the community to help the locomotion of the visitors during the event.
More info on the map and other services: http://www.vidigalo.com/
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