There are two ways to land in Rio de Janeiro.
The first one is in Santos Dumont, an airport built along the shores of the bay. Seeing a plane land in Dumont is a true spectacle: it descends under the shadow of the Corcovado, slides between the Pão de Açúcar and Urca mountains, and lands in the runway, almost touching the waves. Once he leaves the terminal, the traveller stands in the middle of the Aterro parks, where he can choose to visit the monuments of the center, or the beaches of the Southern Zone.
There is an irony to this first trip: this magnificent ballet of planes can only be witnessed from a hill.
Thus, to see it, the Carioca will have to climb to the Santa Teresa neighborhood, or to the streets of any Favela. Basically, in order to see the grandeur of Rio de Janeiro, it is almost a necessity to go to its poorer neighborhoods.
If the traveller is a foreigner, he will probably come from the Galeão airport, a colossal complex standing to the North of the city. Before gazing at the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, or the silhouette of Corcovado, he will have to pass through seas of bricks and concrete called Manguinhos, Bonsucesso, Maré. These neighborhoods are not entirely comprised of Favelas, even though those can be identified when the streets become mazes, constantly roamed by armed policemen. Even though the trip to Southern Rio is a cunning web of viaducts and walled highways, it is inevitable to glimpse a landscape quite different to the “Marvellous City” that Rio claims to be.
Cariocas have invented an evocative term to describe some parts of their city: “cartão postal”. Cartão Postal is the dreamy Rio de Janeiro, with its jungles, beaches and Bossa Nova, and its white Christ blessing the people with his august hands. The Cariocas, with photographers’ spirits, know and showcase the angles that favour their own city: all the corners that deserve a postcard, and which must be protected and exhibited.
However, when a photographer chooses an angle, he hides all others. If a city is a postcard, it means it ignores everything that is outside the frame.
Río de Janeiro lives in the tension between what’s shown and what’s hidden. The World Cup, the Olympic Games and so many other events have attracted the attention of the world, and have exacerbated the photographic spirit of some people. Ambitious projects are being developed, like the “Porto Maravilha”, which pretends to embellish the old port, demolishing highways, cleansing streets and restoring the heritage of a region that was marked by slavery.
Today, tensions rise between those who seek to embellish the city and those who feel threatened by this aesthetic “cleansing”. Rio isn’t entirely inhabited by lovers of the “Cartão Postal”: there is a significant community that admires and defends the culture that “photographers” seek to marginalize. It is the urban culture, born in the favelas and other distant neighborhoods; a culture that prefers to be called “of the street”: the culture “da rua”.
“Rua”. A word surrounded by magic in the Carioca spirit. It evokes an almost utopian space where freedom is lived without limits. Rua is where the music plays, Rua is painted with colours, Rua is where the party is born, Rua, is a land of dreams, in constant construction. A place that stands to be permanently reconquered. Everyone can be a lover of the Rua, from the tourist that enjoys the samba under the Lapa Arches, to the artist that paints the streets at dawn.
Any Carioca will claim that what I write is a caricature. Rio isn’t a city divided between superficial “photographers” and idealists who venerate the Rua. Sometimes, both sides mingle: some Favelas have become essential parts of the cartão postal. The colorful homes of the Santa Marta Favela, its privileged look at the Corcovado, and its Michael Jackson clip, have turned it into an icon of the city. And even though some mysterious “fireworks” still explode among its streets, the community is constantly filled with tourists, eager to explore the mythical world of the Brazilian Favelas.
Despite what purists may say, the Rio of the Postcards and the Rio of the Rua are not indissociable. Each neighborhood of the city (except for the Urca peninsula) has its own Favela, growing on a hill, like a reflection projected on its slope. From the beginnings of the city's history, rich Cariocas have attempted to flee this mixed existence, moving to distant neighborhoods. First, they left the Centre to inhabit the South, but Botafogo earned Santa Marta, Ipanema earned Vidigal. Even when they went far to the West, in the shores of Barra da Tijuca, the poor followed them, eager to share their space.
Today, even if Rua culture is better respected, many Carioca cannot stand the diversity. The inevitable Favelas are sometimes hidden, or even evicted. Nowadays, some Favelas are being affected by real estate speculation: their lands are being bought, and emptied of any Rua culture.
A city born and raised in diversity, Rio currently lives through an identity crisis: between a Rua culture on the rise, and a Favela that represents an untenable inequality. This without mentioning the Rua lovers who accuse Rio’s bourgeoisie of domesticating Favela culture, or those who say Favelas glorify lawlessness.
Rio de Janeiro is a gigantic contrast, that deepens by the day. Even though its diversity enriches its art and creativity, it also garners great conflicts and frustrations.
To deny each other isn’t a solution, to reject each other isn’t either. Dialogue between Cariocas must continue, a dialogue that, through art, should seek to better the lives in the Favelas.
Fortunately, bridges already exist. It is time to use them to integrate the city, instead of avoiding a solution that may allow Rio to live its diversity.