Number 28 - A visit to a CIEP.

Ever since the first time I set foot in Brazil I have been fascinated by the CIEP"s. These schools were built while Leonel Brizola was Governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro - from 1983-1987 and 1991 - 1994. Based on a project by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro the aim was to provide public all- day schools with quality education, meals and extra activities like sports and art. CIEP is short for Centros Integrados de Educação Publica - Integrated Centers for Public Education.

The schools were designed by Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian star architect, and were conceived as simple building kits made of concrete. The schools therefore look more or less the same, and the state of Rio de Janeiro built about 500 of them.  Many of them were built in very poor areas, and they are with their special design easy to spot.

Through work I finally got a chance to visit one, and it was a great experience. The CIEP we visited is located in São Gonçalo, about an hour's drive from Rio de Janeiro, it is called CIEP 412 Dr. Zerbini.

We visited the school as part of an educational program linked to the Rio 2016 Olympics. This CIEP has got a "sister school" in Norway, and we were surprised to find the whole school decorated with Brazilian and Norwegian flags.

We were received by the school staff and all the students, and they proudly showed us around their school:

The computer lab.

The sports hall.

The library - which was in a separate building and really nice.

And a typical classroom with students that seemed to really enjoy meeting the strange foreigners!

We also got to visit an art class, and what were they working on? A Frida Kahlo project!

I told the students that Frida Kahlo is one of my favorite artists and mentioned that I had just visited the exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. At the end of the visit I got a wonderful surprise gift; an artwork made by one of the students with Frida Kahlo and the Brazilian and Norwegian flag!

For me it had been a very special day. I was happy to see that the school, even if now almost 30 years old, was in good conditions, and I was happy to see how proud the teachers and the students were of their school. The project was abandoned in Brazil, but I still think it was a brilliant program, designed to get the kids off the streets and give them a good basic education.If you want to read more, here is a link to an interesting article from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/mar/15/flatpack-flexible-oscar-niemeyer-schools

And with this I say: Happy Easter to all!

Number 27 - Frida Kahlo at Caixa Cultural

I have declared this my Frida Kahlo year! The famous Mexican artist has always been one of my favorites, but I had never seen her paintings "up close and for real". My first chance came as the exhibition:  " Frida Kahlo - Conexões entre mulheres surrealistas no Mexico" came to Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition hosted at Caixa Cultural has been a great success in Brazil, first showed in São Paulo and now moving on to Brasilia.

That Frida Kahlo had been at the center of an important movement in Mexico, both intelectual and artistic, I already knew, but I was not familiar with many of the other female painters featured at the exhibition. I also discovered that Frida Kahlo painted so much more than the self-portraits.

Even so it was of course the self-portraits that got most of the attention:

I was familiar with her obsession for Diego Rivera, her husband, but did not know of her interest in mother earth, the moon and the mysteries of life, an interest she shared with many of the other painters featured at the exhibition:

This painting " Minotauro" by Remedios Varo I especially liked.

The exhibition also had typical Mexican dresses on display, not Frida Kahlo's but one could easily see where she got the inspiration for her outfits.

I finish off with a beautiful picture of a Mexican girl, made by Frida Kahlo, that in a way sums it all up: Frida's interest in the indigenous Mexican culture, the dress and the ancient symbols.

Number 26 - Chácara do Céu

Located in Santa Tereza, right next door to Parque das Ruínas, is the Chácara do Céu Museum. This magnificent house used to be the residence of Raimundo Castro Maya.
The original Chácara do Céu was an old mansion where the Castro Maya family lived, and which was also used by several diplomatic missions, among them Norway. In the 1950's the old house was demolished and a new, modern house was built, designed by the architect Wladimir Alves de Souza.

The house was adapted and turned into a museum in the 1970's, it has a great collection of European and Brazilian art and furniture.

This is a painting by Marc Chagall.

And this is a Portinari.

The library is incredible with about 8 thousand books.
But what I really liked was the garden:

Enormous, green, lush, tropical and with sculptures spread kind of casually around. A silent oasis, who could wish for more? Oh, and the blogger always looking for a bench to sit and take it all in, found a new candidate to the most inviting bench in Rio:

Number 25 - Parque das Ruínas

After a week where we went from the warmest day of the year, to the heaviest rainfall of many, many years, and finally to yet another political crisis in what has been described as "the perfect storm" in Brazil, it was good to finally reach the weekend! Watching the weather forecast closely, not having forgotten the chaos of last week, I took a while to decide if I would really venture out and up to Santa Tereza. In the end I did, and I was not disappointed.

My destination was Centro Cultural Municipal Parque das Ruínas, high up in the charming neighborhood of Santa Tereza.

The Cultural Center was built using the ruins of what used to be a "little palace" owned by Laurinda Santos Lobo, who back in the 1920's hosted parties and meetings with prominent artists and intellectuals. After her death in 1946, the mansion was abandoned and turned into a ruin. In 1997 the City of Rio de Janeiro opened the Cultural Center and park, after what was left of the house had been preserved and turned into a place for performances and exhibitions. The architectural project by Ernani Freire and Sonia Lopes preserved what was left of the mansion, and created steel stairways, balconies and structures in glass in and around it.

There were two exhibitions on display, and a play for children being enacted on one of the verandas.
Lots of tourists were climbing up and down the stairs and admiring the view, which was fantastic.

It was difficult to say which angle was the best! I had fun climbing and finding new ones, and admiring the idea of the architects that had been able to create something new out of something that was at first sight just a crumbling ruin.

The two figures are sculptures, called "The Guardians".

It was a great discovery, and I felt highly rewarded for having ventured out on a Sunday morning.