Boa Mistura Uses Graffiti To Connect Communities (PHOTOS)

Street artists Boa Mistura sees their graffiti as an intervention. The collective has brought their most recent work to a favela in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with "Luz nas Viela."

Boa Mistura is a multidisciplinary art collective base in Madrid, Spain. The collective is made up of five artists who focus largely on graffiti and community building with a mission of giving the world its color back, as stated on their website.

The collective met in their teenage years when they marked the same turf; painting in the same neighborhood.

"[We are five friends who kept] doing what they like the most and working hard until today, fulfilling their dream of living out of it," said Pablo Purone, member of the collective that started in 2001.

Since their inception, the group has had a variety of public art projects, that they call "interceptions" across the globe, including their Diamond Inside project in Cape Town, South Africa.

Their latest, "Luz nas Vielas," is in the Sao Paulo favela (shanty town) of Brasilandia. The troupe painted the walls of the town bright colors, and using a clever visual trick -- painted words that appear to float when viewed from, a certain angle. With words like "Amor" (love) and "Firmeza" (stability), the project is right in line with the group's mission.

Before they embark on a new street art project, Boa Mistura seek the guidance from the most import an aspect of a community -- the people within it.

"We like to feel the place, talk with the local people, breath the atmosphere and be inspired before start working," Purone said. "Because when you make a street intervention, it is linked to a particular place, and you need to have dialog with the environment."

Click through below to view "Luz nas Vielas:"

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Comments

[jp83]

06:16 PM on 03/18/2012

Great use of perspective.

[sparkybrown7877]

06:02 PM on 03/17/2012

I wish I could see the slide show.........it keeps rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling............

[elann]

05:05 PM on 03/17/2012

Fantastic!

[Paintio]

04:13 PM on 03/17/2012

I did something a little like that once. It was both on a much smaller scale and much less successful, though.

[sparkybrown7877]

06:05 PM on 03/17/2012

May be you should've gone big, why not?

[Paintio]

06:21 PM on 03/17/2012

Yup, I guess.

[anneeger]

04:04 PM on 03/17/2012

Could they please come here and try to change the look of hundred thousands of tract homes going on for endless miles and miles and miles

[frank day]

07:37 PM on 03/17/2012

I agree, I've visited some Brazilian favelas and they are more interesting and organic

than any north American subdivision I've ever come across.

[Lechiffre]

07:42 PM on 03/17/2012

It looks like a fratboy dormitory . I don't know if its a shade of pink or red . I hate subtle colours.I always pause mentally when I need to classify them.

[invirginia]

06:09 PM on 03/18/2012

Yes, but many lack the basics, such as indoor plumbing.

[Marion McGinnis]

03:47 PM on 03/17/2012

Ingenious. Cool. Heartwarming. Fresh.