2002

Public art project and video installation

33 photographs plotted on canvases 3 x 4 m

Loop: 33minutes | Variable dimensions

Commissioned for Arte Cidade, conceived by Nelson Brissac Peixoto, the project presented 33 one-minute long videos, about and with 33 street vendors of Concórdia Square, in the neighbourhood of Brás, in São Paulo. In Brazil's largest concentration of street vendors at the times, they talk about the products they sell - several miniatures, imitations, kitsch objects, cheap things - most of them costing about R$ 1 Real.  There are small, cheap and colorful things, often quite ugly and with no use, but that imitate or allude to the original products promoted by the media.

These videos integrated a large size installation exhibited at Concórdia Square itself during the two months. TV sets were spread throughout the Square, each one of them placed in a tent of one street vendor who participated in the project. All screen monitors showed the video made in the venue. Each vendor who participated in the project could keep one set of monitor and video player after the exhibition period.  In the middle of the square tents, a six-meter high tower was raised, and on the top of it, one of the stands - the one that sells snacks - was replaced. A popular video bar functioned on it, selling coffee, beer, sandwiches and payphone cards. The place was nicknamed "Mera Vista Point“ because from it one could see the whole Square from above, one's feet being exactly at the level of the tents. From the video-bar tower, one could see the colorful canvases that cover the vendors’ tents, and, spread over them, the 33 canvases printed with the large black & white portraits of the street vendors who participated in the project.