THE NEW SCHOOL NEW YORK CITY SPRING 2018
THE URBAN RIVER MOVEMENT AQUATIC (HIS)TORIES OF SAO PAULO BY DOMINIQUE FLAKSBERG
Aquatic What? Global warming and environmental change are raising water levels globally. Sao Paulo, in the southeast of Brazil, is one of the wealthiest and most populated cities in Latin America. The city has two major visible rivers that cross the center of the city, but in reality there are more than 50k kilometers of water flows, which are currently channeled, polluted, and hidden under construction. Flooding has been an obstacle to urban living since the coverage of these rivers, which started with the urbanization of the city and the necessity for transportation, dating back to the 1500s. I started researching the rivers of Sao Paulo after reading the book "Guia Fantastico de Sao Paulo", by Angela Leon. In her book, she illustrates different places in the city, reimagining what they would look like if this rivers were not covered by roads. Throughout this research I noticed Leon's book was only one of the countless resources available to dive into the rivers of Sao Paulo, their history and the meanings they still cary today. I understood there was an entire network of people. places and projects that responded to Angela's work. And some of them were inspired by it just as much as I was! Within this network of people, I encountered a movement* of artists, geographers, environmentalists and educators rethinking the city’s relationship to its rivers. They believe the process of uncovering these water flows (physically, but also through educating people about their existence) is a way to engage the urban population with the territory, and create a dialogue that reevaluates sustainability and the future of the city. These organizations and individuals have a primary goal of raising awareness and education, but also attempt to bring community and congruence with nature in a time where global warming is affecting communities worldwide. I wanted to share all these amazing treasures I have found in this research path with you, and create a platform where all these artists, educators, activists and projects around the rivers could become connected, Through this booklet I wanted to visualize what I know already exists behind all these projects: A movement. This booklet will take you through the history of the river coverages and introduce, connect and engage with the rising movements and agents that are currently working around the hidden rivers of the city of Sao Paulo. It will also look at social mobilizations and possible perspective changes this movement might have in perceptions of local sustainability, including a personal project I developed in response to the work developed around the rivers of Sao Paulo and the communities I interacted with.
- Dominique Flaksberg
*"Movement" is a term used throughout this booklet to refer to the combination of actors and organizations working around the topic of the rivers in the city of Sao Paulo. These agents and organizations have common goals and actions, which, in different fields altogether, such as urbanist, education, communication, academia, arts and design. Combined, they contribute to what we call in this booklet "The Urban River Movement". ** Uncoverage is a tern coined in the exhibit "Rios (Des)cobertos" (Portuguese for (Un)Covered Rivers), which happened in Sao Paulo in 2017, organized by the "Rios e Ruas"(Rivers and Roads) Organization in collaboration with local artists and activists in order to bring attention to the unseen rivers of the city.
 I wanted to share all these amazing treasures I have found in this research path with you, and create a platform where all these artists, educators, activists and projects around the rivers could become connected,
 All translations from Portuguese to English in interviews and articles that have not been translated yet were made by the author.
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Part 1: Historical Foundations - A critical History of Sao Paulo, p.16 - Structural City problems, p18 - Western Development and Eurocentrism, p20 - River of thre Dry Fish, p20
Part 2: Today - The Urban River Movement, p26
Part 3: Perceptions of Sustainability - Awareness, Education, Action, p36
Part 4: Future Action Through Design - Aqua-Bike Lane, p42 - Garment Biking System: Urban Bike Commuting in cities, p44 - Hidden Topographies of Everyday Life, p46-
WHAT AM I LOOKING AT? 1. Aquatic What?, p2 -letter from the editor
2. It all started with a book..., p6 Sparking Curiosity and Further Inspiration
3. Why am I writing this, p8 Personal Perspective
4. Community, p10 5. Workbook, p12 Definition of Terms
Now What?, p48 Works Cited and References, p50
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It all started with a book... these are some resources to get you started and feel inspired with inspired by The Urban River Movement! Are you a part of it too? Submit your project to aquaticpathsofcities@gmail.com !
Guia Fantastico de Sao Paulo (Fantastic Guide of Sao Paulo) by Angela Leon Available in Portuguese, Spanish and English Published by Kraft, 2015 Contravento 6: Cidade x Natureza (Contravento 6: City vs, Nature) by Architecture Students of the University of Sao Paulo Available in Portuguese
Cidade das Águas (City of the Waters) by Denise Bernuzzi de Sant Anna Available in Portuguese Published by Senac Sao Paulo, 2015
Paulo Mendes da Rocha Obra completa (Complete Work) by Daniele Pisani Available in Portuguese and Spanish Published by GG Brasil, 2014
Rios de Sao Paulo: O caminho das Aguas (Rivers of Sao Paulo: The Path of the Waters) by Vito D'Alesiso Available in Portuguese and English Published by Dialeto, 2011
Can the process of uncovering water flows (physically, but also through educating people about their existence) engage the urban population with the territory, and create a dialogue that reevaluates sustainability and the future of the city?
Guia Fantastico de Sao Paulo Illustrated book reimagining the city of Sao Paulo if its Urban Infrastructure prioritized its rivers and natural environment. > this book was the first inspiration which brought me to start this research. It made me reflect on the ways art can make us interact with the cities we live in. Contravento 6: CIdade x Natureza Independent Magazine created by students. This edition focuses on the Rivers of Sao Paulo. > This magazine is an extraordinary piece that collects work from different students and professionals in the field of urbanism, in conversation with the subject of the urban rivers of Sao Paulo. Cidade das Aguas Guides one through the urbanization of Sao Paulo from 1822-1901, focusing on the rivers and how they affected daily life. Paulo Mendes da Rocha: Obra Completa Includes different works and a biography of one of Brazil's most influential architects, that have developed a plan for a city of Sao Paulo functioning based on its water bodies. > Paulo Mendes da Rocha work embodies the infrastructure, design and politics of the city of Sao Paulo, enabling one to think critically through design methodologies. Rios de Sao Paulo; O Caminho Das Aguas Anthropological piece about Migration, Urbanization and Inclusivity in Sao Paulo, focusing on its rivers and their paths.
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Why Am I Writing This? My late understanding of the territory of Sao Paulo, its rivers and valleys, and the indigenous stories of the land prior to Portuguese settlements, all brought me to question how intrinsically connected urbanization was to the social and environmental inequality in the city I grew up in.
Growing up in Sao Paulo in a family of Jewish European immigrants, it took me a long time to become aware of the earth living beneath the city I lived in. My mainly Eurocentric/ Jewish education did not push me to consider the territory of Sao Paulo through a decolonized lens. The territory was there in my favor; My great-grandparents escaped the Second World war and this was the land where they could work, prosper and live peacefully. The Sao Paulo I grew up in was made for and by immigrants, it was my family's home, And Sao Paulo was a great place for me, and other immigrants and their generations, to live in. All I had to do was function within the roads, buildings and institutions that I was introduced to at early age. Brazil is labeled a "developing country", due to its history of colonization, with an extractive model in which its natural resources were taken by Portugal, delaying the development of processing and manufacturing industries. In this context, I grew up surrounded by social and environmental injustices that were often not seen through my privileged childhood. At age of 15 I moved to .a non-jewish school, where I met people from different realities and started to see the very diverse cultural, religious, social and economical backgrounds around me, I started understanding the history of the country that my family settled in, not from their perspective, but from another lens, which allowed me to connect, for the first time, to the rich and diverse roots of Sao Paulo.
My late understanding of the territory brought me to question how intrinsically connected was the process of urbanization, which seemed natural to me, to the history of colonization of the country. How did the city get to be the way it was? Sao Paulo's history has the weight of its colonization by the Portuguese in the 1500s. The infrastructure of the city today carries the historical weight of the westernization of its territory, brought by the invasion of a European culture. This project is an attempt to recontextualize the history of the place I was born in, but that I was not truly aware of (culturally or geographically). I came across the Urban River Movement in 2017 through the book of Angela Leon, and fell in love. Through its work in different fronts, it is possible to see many possibilities of rethinking the future of developing countries, and break away from the colonial heritage that was inherited by western thought. I hope this booklet can, through the case study of The Urban River Movement, bring some light to the importance of recognizing the historical and cultural heritage of a territory when thinking about the future of cities, The case study of Sao Paulo is relevant when reflecting on the possibilities of sustainable development in colonized cities.
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Community
This work would not have been possible without  the wonderful help of:
Parsons Professor Founder "Rios e Ruas" Urbanist Parsons Professorr Global Studies Chair Parsons Fashion Director Support and Inspiration Advising Director Advice and Guidance Concept Development Concept Development Peer Review Support Eugene Lang Professor
Mary Benthaha Jose Bueno Tali Liberman Caldas Brigitte Conti Alexandra Delano Fiona Dieffenbacher Rafael Flaksberg Shanley Mitchell Veija Kusama Morris Anna Clara Amato Muner Lucas Pradino Marielle Tejada Emma Wedmore Amanda Zadorian
And all my wonderful classmates.
I am extremely grateful for my wonderful and supportive family, my childhood in Sao Paulo, and for Mother Earth, without whom this project would not have had the purpose or passion necessary to be completed.
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WORDBOOK clarification of terms used in this booklet
MOVEMENT In this booklet I often talk about the “movements” surrounding the river and the mobilization of environment related activism (footnote for movement on page 1 of this booklet). I am making the assumption that such movement show a potential of reclaiming local development through the understanding of the land, deconstructing local mentalities of development and sustainability and rethinking Sao Paulo in its local values. In this booklet, I refer this social, political, cultural and environmental actors and the "Urban River
COLONIALISM & NEOCOLONIALISM Colonialism is defined in this specific context as the colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese in the 1500s, which brought the first immigrant elite and the spread of a European mindset to the country. Neocolonialism in this context is defined as the relationship between Brazil and the United States, after Brazil became independent. This neocolonialism is defined by the dependent relationship of Brazil with the United States, both economically and politically, which started with the
Movement". I plan to better understand how
Monroe Doctrine* and the installation of urban
perceptions of sustainable (or unsustainable)
“development” following North American Western
development have shaped the history of Sao Paulo.
ideas of progress. One example of this relationship is
Through the case study of Sao Paulo’s water flows I
the roads built all over the country with the financing
will explore how sustainable development in Brazil
of the United States, which was beneficial to U.S.
has a paradoxical force between local organizing and
industry due to the car industry Brazil would buy
colonial-inherited thought. I hope such exploration of a "movement" in this booklet can help you rethink
from in the future. Neocolonialism is a global concept that can be applied to many “developing”
the ongoing history of Sao Paulo through a more
countries and is not exclusive to Brazil, although this
holistic perspective, and connect different actors
research will tackle the implications of
working in parallel lines to get more in sync with
neocolonialism with a focus in the relationship
their local environment.
between Sao Paulo and the United States.
* The Monroe Doctrine positioned the United States against European Colonialism in American countries. which shifted the relationships on power of colonized countries from being explored by Europe to being explored by The United States. The well known quote "American for the North Americans" comes from that context.(Murphy, Gretchen, 33, 2005)
INDIGENOUS In the context of this booklet, I use the term indigenous to talk about non-colonizer people living in the land of Sao Paulo before Portuguese colonization and in the first century post colonization (1500s-1600s). The reason why I say non-colonizers is because the history of Brazil includes a lot of cultural mix, which makes the Brazilian culture itself defined by a combination of Native Indigenous Communities, African descendants brought to the country due to slave trade, and colonizing Europeans. I am therefore defining indigenous as the minority cultures which got marginalized and covered by the presence of European catholic colonization. This definitions comes fro the Anthropofagic Manifesto, written in 1928 to define Brazilian cultures in opposition to European cultural domination (Manifesto Antrofopagico, 1928). I am applying the term indigenous to culture and not to people, once the period of 1500-1600 is over. This is because it is beyond my reach to define indigeneity in clear lines due to miscegenation in the country and my lack of specialization in the area of study. Throughout the booklet, I will highlight the relevance of having current city geography and location labeled in original Tupi language, (which is one of the main indigenous languages on the territory), for the better understanding of the indigenous use of the land pre Portuguese colonization. SUSTAINABILITY & DEVELOPMENT Those terms that are being questioned and redefined in this booklet, and get tackled specifically in this first part of it. Both words are used in the mainstream as 1st world terms that define the progress of society, and its relationship to nature through anthropocentric, capitalist terms. This paper is questioning the use of the terms sustainability and development according to the Western thought, and thinking of possibilities of re-appropriating the terms or using alternative language to define sustainability as “balance among all living and nonliving beings” and development as “improvements of human life in the context of cities”. Rethinking and redefining sustainability and development is one of the main goals in this booklet, as it look at those redefinitions through the reflections raised by the Urban River Movement. I
GROUPS & AGENTS In this booklet I talk a lot about “groups”. By that I am defining groups of people or organizations working on a cause, either in community engagement, urban planning, education, geographical studies or art. I also mention “movements” in this research, which is defined by the potential impact these groups might have when considered mobilizing actors for the same cause, which in this case, is the acknowledgement of the covered rivers of Sao Paulo. "Agents" is a term used for specific people or actions taken within those groups. I also plan to come up with suggestions on things that still need to be considered on future steps of this movement such as looking into perspectives of local urban development through science and education, but also through spiritual and cultural practices of the different cultures that compose Sao Paulo as the city it is. One of the examples of suggestions is on adding indigenous perspectives to the discourse of urbanization, which so far I have not found enough linkage and significant evidence on in relationship to the groups that I mentioned. Bringing an indigenous perspective to the urbanization of the city means not only the recognition of the territory as indigenous, but the recognition of the own etymology of the city as indigenous. This language heritage from the Tupi language informs how the geography of the place looked like before urbanization itself, being an important tool to recover the history of the covered rivers. Adding this acknowledgement into the river projects is a way to bring indigenous knowledge and history into the conversation of the city geography. The use of the word Groups is crucial when highlighting different agents, how they organize, and their potential within the "Urban RIver Movement".
hope by the end of it you will have reflected on their meanings and uses.
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PART 1: HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
When there were high tides, which began to be seen as floods, the rivers reestablished their existence, and proved that although excluded from the city, they were still  flowing under Sao Paulo’s pavement
Painting by artist Debret, painted in 1827, depicting the valley of Sao Paulo de Piratininga
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A (Critical) Introduction to Sao Paulo,
based on the extraordinary short film "Entre Rios" by Caio Silva Ferraz
,
Before Sao Paulo:
South America's Mesopotamia
The city of Sao Paulo, located in the Southeast of Brazil, started in a plateau located in between the rivers Tamanduatei and Anhangabau. Named Piratininga at the time, the colony of Brazil was first inhabited by Portuguese colonizers in the 1500s (Metcalf, 1992). The specific location of the settlement was inhabited by indigenous people prior to Portuguese arrival, due to its privileged geographical location. In between two rivers, the plateau area provided access to two distinct water sources; one convenient for transportation and fluvial circulation (Tamanduatei river), and the other convenient for access to clean water to fulfil smaller water needs (Anhangabau river). Its strategic location was a big part of its settlement success, which, similar to the history of the Tigres and Eufrates rivers in Egypt (Algaze 2008), can make Sao Paulo possible of comparison to being the South American Mesopotamia.
Opposite page 1. picture by Chico Batata, personal archive. 2. watercolor by Arnaud Julien, 1821. 3. Construction of São Paulo's first Railway, at serra do Mar, circa de 1865. From RFFSA archive. 4. Picture by Alice Branco, Indigenous protest in Brasilia, 2017.
Before Sao Paulo: Piratininga
before the 1500s
Early Urbanization
1500 1800s
Urbanization
1800 onwards
Looking back &
today
The name Piratininga, which came for indigenous Tupi and that then was appropriated by the Jesuit missions, means “dry fish”. The etymology comes from the low tides seasons in the area’s rivers, in which fish would get caught in the moist land and dry as the water vanished (Clovis, 2008). The Tupi language, very important in the area and spoken among some of the indigenous tribes in Brazil, illustrates the importance of the rivers before Portuguese invasion, which was only reinforced as crucial for the development of the current area of Sao Paulo in the first years of Portuguese colonization.
Although indigenous tribes in Piratininga used the water as a vital source for settlement, the rivers would only remain the core of life in the land for the first 300 years after the Portuguese arrival. It was the water that brought commerce to the town, due to the installation of a port in the adjunct city of Santos. The coffee production in the country, especially in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais, made Sao Paulo a relevant place for exports of the grain. Due to the demand for coffee transportation to and from the area, and the lack of sanitation and care for the rivers due to the exponential population growth, the Tamanduatei river soon became insufficient transportation and an unpleasant burden to the city due to its smell. The slow replacement of the polluted rivers into sewage systems (Ferraz, 2011) and the construction of railways of their surface were an important actor in the the change in the value given to the rivers. Due to the construction of trains to transport the coffee to and from Sao Paulo, the coffee producing elite was able to migrate from farms in the countryside to Sao Paulo, Interested in the modern life provided by the city’s growth, the elite’s Eurocentric ontology made the process of urbanization gradually distance itself from functioning with the rivers. It was through this mindset that the construction of Sao Paulo was highly inspired by the automobile railroad model of big European avenues, such as the Champs Elysees, in France. Following the urban plan of the most powerful cities in Europe, Sao Paulo started the process of channelling water, as requested and desired by the European elite residing in the area. In 1850s the sewage disposed in the water was thrown in the rivers that crossed the city, causing sanitary problems. Those polluted lands were then covered and sold as property land, solving economic and mercantile problems of the growing city, but also compromising sanitary and health to the less privileged part of the population. The history of the urbanization of Sao Paulo and the coverage of the rivers in itself is historical proof of the process of dispossession of indigenous tribes inhabiting the area, and a lack of consideration of their relationships with the environment and their lifestyle. Through the mindset of a colonial heritage and an European urbanization project, the history of the rivers of Sao Paulo (and of Sao Paulo itself) is rooted in structures of power and oppression that started the process of unsustainable urban development, rooted in the European urban plan mentioned.
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Structural City Problems In 1920s, when the Tamanduatei river got channelized, losing its original curves and becoming straight to facilitate construction around it. By 1920s the rivers Tamanduatei, Tiete and Pinheiros, the three main water bodies in the center of Sao Paulo, had lost their original curves and functions becoming hidden under the concrete or the streets , and roads of the expanding city. Piratininga, which had in its etymology in the history of the rivers and the biodiversity in its surroundings, was no.w Sao Paulo de Piratininga, and today it lost its language heritage to become only “Sao Paulo”. The city of the rivers of the dry fish, now is the city of covered rivers, and has become the most populous city in the entire country (population 11.895.893)(EXAME, 2014). “Viaduto do Cha” in the vale do Anhangabaú was the first viaduct built in the city, in the process of river coverage due to urbanization . It was the biggest urban construction that signaled significant water coverage. After the coverage of Anhangabau, followed by ther coverage of Tamanduatei, the city saw itself surrounded by the biggest remaining uncovered rivers of Tiete and Pinheiros. In maps of the city today, the structure of this rivers is still seen, and two of the main highways in the city are al. Both of them had already lost their curves (as seen in the image above). Alongside those rivers, dividing the center of the city to its sprawling surroundings.
Tiete and Pinheiros, which are today visible in the city, went through a long process of channelization, and today, incredibly polluted, are seen as undesirable areas of the city. They are currently surrounded by highways, which are often filled with traffic and lack of interaction between the river and its surrounding buildings. The few rivers that remain uncovered became very important transportation pathways in the city due to the construction of highways adjacent to its margins. In the 1940s the Tiete river was used for canoe sports and swimming. Now the city has turned its back from its waters, as the rivers got increasingly more [polluted since the 1940s. Today, no construction in the surroundings benefit from the water, and buildings around the river don’t face the water or celebrate its existence. The river once cherished for its waters, is currently only acknowledged by the unpleasant smell coming from the sewage transported in its waters. Could this process have been different? Could Sao Paulo have water activities around its rivers today? What needs to change for the city to acknowledge its waters again? The picture in this page shows the channeling process of the Pinheiros river, which previously had the curves indicated in blue. On the opposite page you can see two floods that happened in different periods which signals how the process of urbanization of Sao Paulo without the acknowledgement of the rivers caused structural city problems that have been present in the city throughout the years.
,
Along different cities around the world, the hidden waters implicates different meanings. In the case of Sao Paulo the hiddenness of the rivers is directly tied back to an anthropocentric way of thinking, which erased natural environment and communities, causing environmental degradation and indigenous dispossession.
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Western Development &
,
In the beginning of the 1900s, the rivers were already polluted by the lack of channelized sewage and excessive trash discarded in the river, which brought problems to public sanitation, Francisco Saturnino de Brito, considered the pioneer sanitarian engineer in the country at the time, had a plan to make a green belt around Tiete river, connecting parks and bringing leisure and community building to the rivers. Since the green belt was not such a profitable option, it had resistance from Elite Coffee Growers in the region, and the project was not completed. Thirty years later, in 1930s, Francisco Prestes Maia, engineer and mayor of Sao Paulo, alongside other planners, proposed a plan to build highways in river margins, which has for a road plan of radial concentric transport, based on European models of city planning. Those models (Paris, for example), already followed the rivers of the city. This is how Sao Paulo was built in the same model, as a result of this plan, The decision to follow an urban plan that was based on European city planning and encouraged the construction of highways and use of cars was based on planning, building and producing a city with a car market that was profitable for the economic partnerships with the United States. This partnership with theUnited states showed the second relationship of Sao Paulo’s urbanization to colonialism: This time, the north American neocolonialism. Another agent behind this plan was Light and Co., an energy company in the country that was interested in the economic potential of the rivers, and utilized is power to accelerate, among other agents, the exploration of the river area and acceleration of the urbanization process of Sao Paulo.
For Prestes Maia, Cars became the symbol of modernity, of urbanization, of development. Brazil’s definition of development grew through an Eurocentric, and later, North American, discourse. This inheritance started with colonialism and the coffee elite, and later expanded with the arising relationships between U.S. and Brazil through the Monroe Doctrine. Since the urbanization model followed such idealizations, the city ended up resembling the urban planning of Chicago, and Sao Paulo is seen in urban terms as the “Latin America’s” Chicago (Silva Ferraz, Caio, 2009). In the gradual process of urbanization, a lot of area was necessary to build roads, and the rivers signaled the few spaces where no construction was in place yet. Therefore, the rivers got covered and the roads were built in very humid, likely to flood, areas.
Euro centrism This benefited the government financially because it was cheaper and easier to build roads where no housing displacement would happen (since the rivers signaled the few unoccupied spaces by construction). These “Avenue Plans” abled the expansion of the city, which happened during Prestes Maia’s government. The Plan consisted in the constructions of avenues in previous valley spaces, avoiding housing misplacement and making construction cost and time efficient.
,
In a current Sao Paulo where its rivers got covered, caught in an Eurocentric development model, the United Stated relationship to the country enhanced values of capitalist practice. Through North American influence, privatization in the city allows urban development to be made on the basis of the interests of the rich, which are inclined to follow the same Eurocentric thought the city was founded under. Through this construction model, the high tides seasons began to be seen as floods. Those were the moments when the rivers reestablished their existence, and proved that although excluded from the city, they were still flowing under Sao Paulo’s pavement.
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,
It is crucial to consider indigenous dispossession and violence occupation to understand the reasons that brought the rivers of Sao Paulo to be hidden.The displacement of people and water are parallel, just as much as the marginalization of the rivers and of minorities is still connected today. By prioritizing the material and economic development of the city, Sao Paulo turned its back to the life and wisdom existent in the territory; it aimed to erase the topography of a land that has the river’s as its biggest provision, turning it into enemy or “progress”, as the Brazilian Flag describes is the motto of the country. “Order and Progress”, the goals of the independent country of Brazil, started from disordering organic and indigenous ways the water and the Tupis, among other indigenous tribes in the land. “Progress”, implied not letting the water in the rivers progress in its natural course. Yet, the waters persisted and persist, and so do the people. And this persistence can tell us so much about the present and the current communities working in Sao Paulo today to understand the power of the rivers and their impacts, positive and negative) in the city.
Going back to the etymology of the words using today to name rivers in the city, there is an inheritance of Tupi language that explains the relationship between humans and the environment from a different perspective than the one of the colonizer. My favorite example is the story of the Tamanduatei river, which I heard for the first time in the documentary “Entre Rios (In between Rivers)”, by Caio Silva Ferraz (Ferraz, Silva, 2009). “Tamandua + Tei” means the river “tei” of the anteater “tamandua”. The river was named in Tupi because of its flood and draught seasons. The flood seasons would bring food for the riverside populations, while during the draught period the fish would get stuck in the soil, drying. The ants in the soil would then eat the fish, and the anteaters, would go after the ants that were eating the fish, creating a congregation of anteaters in the area.
The naming of the river through the history of the surrounding ecosystems contrasts with the anthropocentric urbanist plan that the city ended, up following. The indigenous tribes that lived by the Tamanduatei river used the Tupi language to describe the environment taking in consideration other forms of life that are not human. By doing so, their vocabulary and language points out the value of the environment despite humans, and beyond the relationships between humans and the rest of the environment.
Tupi shows us how to shift the focus to the ecosystem as a whole and give attention to all surrounding elements in existence among themselves, rather than in relationship to humans. The environment is seen, understood and respected in a different way. The ants and the Anteaters and the dry fish are forming a food cycle that humans are not part of. The river could be named after the abundance of food for human consumption but it was named after the relationship between beings and their cycles outside of human consumption. Language can be used in the context of Sao Paulo and its rivers to shift discourses and perceptions of the environment. Sao Paulo has a rich heritage of Tupi language, and an ongoing community of indigenous people that exists despite the coverage of the river and the ecosystems it carries. The potential in this inheritance, and presence is extremely valuable for the understanding (and reeducation) of Sao Paulo in relationship to its rivers and its ecosystem as a whole today. There are current projects and movements within indigenous communities in Sao Paulo working in the issues of land and water. The movement "Demarcação Já" (Demarcation now) asks for the indigenous territories to be demarcated throughout the country, There are also workshops in the center of Sao Paulo in which indigenous guides explain the indigenous history of the territory focusing in the rivers. Although displacement is ongoing since the 1500s, several indigenous communities in Sao Paulo produce workshops, art, and political action plans to demand their rights to the land(Outras Palavras, 2016).
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PART 2: TODAY
Looking at the construction of the urban space of Sao Paulo with a critical eye and connecting the physical structures to the current systems of oppression, degradation and inequality helps in the understanding how the past shaped present, and how the present can shape the future. Listening to the water and its stories now is a powerful tool to understand the past of the land, and consequently, its ongoing present. Besides the endless teachings, history and values the indigenous communities of Sao Paulo have carried throughout the history of the city, there are a number of individuals, organizations and projects working around the “(Un)Converage” of the rivers today. These agents and projects help in the understanding of the movement around the acknowledgement of the rivers in the context of urban spaces, capitalist conversations and global discourses of sustainability, development and urban planning.
"(Un)covered Rivers" [Rios (Des)cobertos] is the name of an exhibition curated by the group "Rios e Ruas" in Sao Paulo, in June, 2017. I use the tern "Uncovered" as a way to explain the attention brought to the unseen, yet existent rivers of the city.
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THE URBAN RIVER MOVEMENT Movement: [often with modifier] a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas. The Urban River Movement: a group of people working together to uncover the rivers of Sao Paulo through politics, arts, activism, education, urbanism, conservation, among others...
EDUCATION
1
Education is the pillar necessary for a group of people to collectively understand a cause, a social issue, a problem, and unite through these understanding. Without education, there is no information, which doesn't allow for a network of information to be spread to a larger group of people.
2
CITY INFRASCTRUCTURE Since this movement is tightly related to the urban space of an existing city, it would not have transformative action in the space without the consideration of the city infrastructure itself. Having a tactile subject to grasp (i.e. Sao Paulo City) also creates a starting point of understanding. Without the existence of an urban infrastructure, the rivers would not be in the state we are reflecting on.
WHAT CREATES THE URBAN RIVER MOVEMENT?
4 3
ART + CULTURE Creativity and Design are crucial to make ideas and information widespread to different audiences. Understanding culture and being in a conversation with different parts of the population with installation, design, and art is what made the movement described highly engaged with the communities surrounding it.
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION The movement around the rivers is intrinsically talking about protection of the rivers; culturally, environmentally, politically, culturally. Environmental Action is a crucial part of the movement, since one of the biggest problems of the current rivers is pollution. Environmental Action also engrains the history of environmental justice in the movement, from indigenous dispossession starting in the 1500s to current health and recreation problems surrounding the rivers.
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THE URBAN RIVER MOVEMENT
WHO CREATES THIS MOVEMENT? When urban projects started being developed in Sao Paulo in the beginning of the mid XX century urbanization, there were already urbanists and scholars that proposed projects about prioritizing the rivers in the process of construction transportation infrastructure. Paulo Mendes da Rocha is a Brazilian architect and urbanist that proposed the idea of the “Tiete City”, in 1980s. Tiete is the name of one of the main rivers in Sao Paulo, which, although channelled and polluted, is still visible alongside the large highway with the same name. His plan aimed to “modify the colonial condition, using architecture to protect the territory through a more human, holistic vision” (Rocha, 1980). Today, Tiete is too polluted for any water activities, including swimming, due to the trash that gets disposed in the water daily. In the past 20 years, there has been a collection of groups that have been working towards increasing conscious around river pollution and urban planning in Sao Paulo. From government projects of river cleaning in 1992 (Super Interessante); to artists, geographers, environmentalists and educators, different areas and projects had been developed in order to rethink and improve the city’s relationship to its rivers. There are key actors that have been recently highlighted in the media as ongoing organized events around the city. Jose Bueno, one of the founders of “Rios e Ruas”, believes the process of uncovering these water flows (physically, but also through educating people about their existence)
is a way to engage the urban population with the territory, and create a dialogue that reevaluates sustainability and the future of the city. Among these agents and organizations, there seems to be a primary goal of awareness and education, but also, an attempt to bring community and harmony between city and nature in a time when it is crucial to think about our connection to the environment and how global warming is affecting communities worldwide. In this part of the booklet I bring attention to different agents working around the rivers of the city, as an attempt to recontextualize them as a group that, together, tackles different issues related to the rivers and can potentially work together to strengthen their impacts on uncovering the rivers of Sao Paulo.
Some of the groups in the Urban River Movement include Rios e Ruas, Cidade Azul, GeoSampa, Eduardo Srur, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and Angela Leon. “Rios e Ruas” (Roads and Rivers) is one of the organizations that connects a good amount of these projects, and creates a network of visibility among them. Founded in 2010, by an urbanist and a geographer, the organization aims to bring consciousness on the presence of the rivers through education. By organizing workshops, marathons, going to schools and curating exhibits, their work already inspired different actors to start projects around the cause. Some of the projects developed are “Circuito Rios e Ruas”, which is a marathon, and “Rios Invisiveis”, which is an internet map that locates the water bodies hidden under the sidewalk.
“A shift in consciousness is the first step towards change. If there is no awareness, there are no agents. We aim to look at ways to make people involved with the water. What they create with the knowledge is up to them.� (Jose Campos Junior, Rios e Ruas personal Interview, 2017).
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WHO CREATES THE URBAN “Rios e Ruas” (Roads and Rivers) is one of the organizations that connects a good amount of these projects, and creates a network of visibility among them. Founded in 2010, by an urbanist and a geographer, the organization aims to bring consciousness on the presence of the rivers through education. By organizing workshops, marathons, going to schools and curating exhibits, their work already inspired different actors to start projects around the cause. Some of the projects developed are “Circuito Rios e Ruas”, which is a marathon, and “Rios Invisiveis”, which is an internet map that locates the water bodies hidden under the sidewalk.
Eduardo Srur is an artist. Art has also played an important part in the movement around the rivers, and work by artists such as Eduardo Srur have shaped the landscape and brought attention to river pollution in Sao Paulo. His installation in the Tiete River, in Sao Paulo, brought awareness to the contamination of a now channelized river that was a great source of leisure 60 years ago, with canoes and swimming opportunities for the population.
GeoSampa is an open source map kept by SMUL that gathers georeferenced data about the city of São Paulo, including about 12 thousand urban facilities, public transport network, geotechnical maps and population data, such as population density and social vulnerability. Geosampa has mapped all rivers and aquatic bodies in the city, making it possible to visualize the names, locations and overlap of these water bodies with roads, topography data, among other things. I used this map to understand the rivers in overlap to current bike lanes and streets when designing the aquatic bike path that I will discuss on page 39 of this booklet.
RIVER MOVEMENT? Cidade Azul is another open source platform that is developing an online map that highlights the rivers in the city. The map of Cidade Azul, rather than having a database purpose, like GeoSampa, is designed to help people engage with the rivers and have a perception of their existence. The map is in grayscale, except for the rivers, highlighted in Blue. Source: Cidade Azul, http://cidadeazul.org/
University of Sao Paulo has also brought an educational institution to these partnerships. Escola do Futuro is a lab/ incubator in the University of Sao Paulo which funds interdisciplinary projects that are related to technology and communication. The incubator supports social research, and provides fundings for community engaged activities. One of the projects in partnership with Escola do Futuro was the fraction of an audio guide that explains how, through a specific path followed in the city, one can identify and learn to hear the rivers that pass but are unseen. The Audio Guides give emphasis to the ecosystem existent within the city, and invite the user to sharpen our perceptions of the space by looking at the bio present in its natural surroundings. “To start this journey, just follow the course of the rivers. It’s simple! Water always finds the smoothest surface, and goes downhill. Look around you and think of which street has the path that water is most likely to follow”... “ See the tree on your right? Touch its trunk. Do you see how moist it is close to the soil? That is because there is water in the underground, which is necessary for these species to survive!”... “can you hear the water? If you listen carefully, you will notice a shy noise of water coming from that manhole.” By connecting natural elements present in the landscape to the river, the audio guides work as a consciousness awakening tool, which changes the perspective of the user on their surrounding environment.
Angela Leon in her book “Guia Fantástico de São Paulo” showed a visually different Sao Paulo, in which cars and roads become parks and community spaces; flood areas become swimming pools, and building rooftops become green areas from leisure time. The reeducation of perceptions of city space to a focus on communities’ connection to the rivers opens up a possibility of a city in which productivity can be substituted by life quality through city infrastructure. Leon's piece opens up the conversation on how art, urbanism and education can be merged to create a reimagined space in the city.
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Picture of the Project "Ocupe e Abraçe", at Praça da Nascente
Ocupe e Abrace The "Praça da Nascente" (Park of the River Source), is one of the places in the city where it is possible to be in contact with the source of a river. The river "Agua Preta" (Black Water) starts in this point, making it not yet polluted by the sewage deposited throughout its path. The community group "Ocupe e Abrace" (Occupy and Embrace) worked in the region to redirect this clean water to a small lake, in which fish and other species live, creating a leisure and educational space for the surrounding community (El Pais, 2016). This collective, created with the goal to revive this water source, is composed by members of the local community, and aims to bring people closer to nature, creating a fruitful space for community building and social encounters. In their online platform (http://www.ocupeeabrace.com.br/?p=247) they also invite interested people to join the collective. In addition, there are cultural events held in the space, which include a food garden, children's activities and birthday parties, and meditation and wellness events. The project is also a partner of Rios e Ruas, alongside other small projects, forming a web of connections of environmental preservation and community building around the rivers.
TOWARDS A MOVEMENT Among these different group described, there is not a common agreement that each one seems to see themselves as belonging to a greater movement. Through interviewing some of the actors working within these groups, I concluded they seem to agree with the fact that collaboration and intercommunication is a big part of their individual projects. Plataforma "Rios e Ruas" is one of the examples of successful collaboration. “ Plataforma Rios e Ruas” (http://www.mostrarioseruas.com.br/plataforma.ph p) is a website organized by the “Rios e Ruas” collective. Within their website, there are different events, press and visibility given to other agents involved in the project of making the rivers more visible in the city. Partnerships with the bank “Caixa” makes possible events such as running marathons to happen in paths that follow the underground rivers. An exhibition was also curated by the group, “Rios (Des)cobertos [(Un)covered Rivers], in which they partnered with different independent artists to showcase work that celebrates water, more specifically, within the city of Sao Paulo.
CHA LLEN GES Coletivo Escafandro partnered with the Rios e Ruas, inspired by their workshops, and added an aquatic map to their online “google maps”of Sao Paulo, which is named “GeoSampa”. They also developed an interactive map that was used in the “Rios (des)cobertos” exhibit, which was highly interactive, aligning with the goal of Rios e Ruas of bringing accessible tools for the population to reach the cause of the rivers. Partnerships of Coletivo Escafandro with the government of Sao Paulo, or of Rios e Ruas with Private organizations such as Caixa are some examples of how environmental awareness and community organizing can, and sometimes must, reach out for partnerships outside local community organizing in order to raise funds and reach out to a bigger number of people. In such actions and projects it is possible to see how local initiatives and projects can benefit from the infrastructure of private, and often corporate, agents. Although I recognize that partnering with bigger structures of power has political implications and can often lead to a clash of values between communities and the very entities that are sponsoring them.
Luis de Campos Junior from Rios e Ruas believes it is crucial in the short term to seek out investment from corporate actors, since without them, the outreach of Rios and Ruas and its positive effects would not have reached the number of people it did. Alongside small partnerships and community building through different organizations and spaces, it is not so surprising to notice that in order for events such as the marathons, exhibitions and workshops to happen, the support, and more often, sponsorship of private companies is necessary. With low investment in cultural programs, and lack of government infrastructure, “Rios e Ruas” is aware that it is crucial to have assistance from businesses in order to succeed in the media, get the public engaged, have fundings and expand their projects. “We do not run against the private companies. In the moment where we are, we need to partner with them in order to get enough funding for the projects. Without partnership, none of the actions would have happened”, said Jose Bueno, when I asked him about the reasons in which there was such a presence of private sponsorships in their website and in the events promoted. Other alternatives for making their projects possible include cross-collaboration with other groups (such as is was the case with "Ocupe e Abraçe), as well as having events in public spaces and partnering with the government, Brazil is inserted in the capitalist context of consumption, in which it is expected that private organizations and consumerist patterns have a powerful influence in the media and politics of the country. Rios e Ruas positions itself as a community improvement project, and works with sponsorships of agents that do not necessarily align with their plans of city development. The recognition of the necessity to invest money in order to grow puts them in a place quite interesting in the scope of social justice. They are not a non-profit organization, but they are not intended to grow with profit as their final goal. Scaling their organization and reaching more people from different backgrounds is one of the priorities, since Rios e Ruas works with education and spreading consciousness. If partnerships are an efficient and necessary way to achieve this goal, then it is part of what they work with. There are no visible negative impacts that Rios e Ruas has signaled so far from working in partnership with private organizations.
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PART 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
Looking at the small and big partnerships and connections made alongside the movement is important for the understanding of different interests embedded in the context, and how they shape the perceptions of the city, its communities, and the discourses on sustainability being thought about, talked about, and widespread through the events and their different audience reach. The community activities and community building related to the (un)covering of the rivers can impact discourses around sustainability as well as perceptions on urbanization and the presence of the natural landscape in cities. From the examples explained in the previous chapter, it is possible to see three main actions that are shaping the movement around the rivers of the city. I divided those actions from the perspectives of awareness, education, and action.
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2 1
AWARENESS • knowledge or perception of a situation or fact;. • concern about and wellinformed interest in a particular situation or development.
I look at awareness in these movements as the act of raising discussions, visual representations and issues that relate to the infrastructure, pollution and human relationship to the rivers. The act of reaching out, spreading facts, and raising issues is done by this groups in the form of marathons, workshops and art installations. These actions are the first stage in getting individuals and communities to notice the existence of these rivers, the existence of a problem carried by the coverage of this rivers, and the infrastructural city problems that relate to those issues. Once this awareness is widespread, then there is space for deepening the understanding of these issues.
EDUCATION. • a body of knowledge acquired while being educated;. • (an education) an enlightening experience: a day with those kids was an education in patience and forbearance.
CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
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The awareness that those rivers exist, or the awareness of the existence of floods, traffic and river pollution, is ACTION the first step towards guiding • the fact or process of individuals and communities doing something, typically to understand the to achieve an aim connection between the • doing something with a history of these rivers to the purpose in mind, usually as current city problems. Rios e a result of awareness and Ruas works on education by educatiom: giving workshops in schools. The audio guides mentioned Jose Bueno, of “Rios e Ruas” believes earlier are a self-taught that individual action can naturally method to understand the arise once people are aware of the presence of the rivers in the existence of this rivers (Bueno, Jose, city. The exhibit “Rios 2017). He has experience with several (des)cobertos”, that took individuals reaching out to him place in 2016 in Sao inspired by the projects he is Paulo, was also a platform for engaged in and wanting to get education that taught the involved, or asking for feedback on viewers about the personal projects they want to start topography of the city, the after seeing the work that has environmental awareness already been done. Angela Leon did related to it, and the illustrations that imply infrastructural environmental justice action in the city, by asking how Sao problems experienced by Paulo would be like if its rivers were artists that were part of the uncovered and used for the benefit exhibit. But what can be of public space and community done when there is wellbeing. The Language Used in the awareness and audio guan be seen as a strategy to understanding of the The writer can also give facts and detailed change discourses around the river, infrastructure of the rivers, bringing floods, for example, to be the historical problems tied information following seen as the human invasion of the into it, and the existing answers to general natural space, rather than the water movements engaged questions in the like who, as what, invasive of our urban issue? when, where, why and how. infrastructures.
image 1: Indigenous protest in Brasilia, claiming for territory demarcation. 2, 7. Workshop in the center of São Paulo held by Rios e Ruas. 3. Installation by Eduardo Srur in Tietê River. 4. Image from book "Guia Fantastico de Sao Paulo", by Angela Leon. 5. River Project "Ocupe e Abraçe". 6. Educational workshop by Rios e Ruas.
"Awareness is the first step. We can't change the structure of the river, but we can build community around the issue, and spark interest in people. When the community is engaged and cares, they usually mobilize to better understand the issue, and then, they do something about it" Luis de Campos Junior
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PART 4 ACTION THROUGH DESIGN
CHAPTER 3: ACTION THROUGH DESIGN
I went through a stage of “awareness” and a stage of “education” in the process of this research. It all started through the illustrated book of Angela Leon, and by watching the movie “Entre Rios”. Those two sources that appeared in my life by chance sparkled my interest in the rivers of this city I lived in, but was unaware of. The process of research, started when I discovered “Rios e Ruas”, and used it as a platform to understand the activities that were happening in the Sao Paulo at the moment. The discovery of this network of groups is what inspired me to gather all learned information and understand its impact as community organizers and actors for sustainable city planning. After the research, and the connection of this different actors and the work they were doing to uncover the rivers of the city, I started thinking of ways to implement action through my personal work as a designer. The action that I worked on based on the research of this booklet was on using tools I am familiarized with to boost people's connections with their environments, especially focusing on The Urban River Movement. With a background on Fashion Design and an inherent interest in urban planning, I worked on three projects that aim to enhance one's connection to the city. The first one, AquaBike Lane, brings cycling into the conversation of the hidden topographies of the rivers by creating a bike path that enhances people's awareness of the rivers by cycling on top of the covered rivers of Sao Paulo. The second project was a fashion collection designed to encourage city commuters to bike to work, as an attempt to enhance their perceptions of the environment by cycling in the surface and commit to more sustainable modes of transport. The third project is a symposium that discusses hidden topographies of the city in a global context, in conversation with the existence of suburbs and the hidden systems within global internet infrastructure. The three projects are initiatives that were inspired by the groups studied within the Urban River Movement, and that brought me to reflect on conversations my personal work can open within this community.
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PROJECT 1: AQUA-BIKE LANE
Through the research of the hidden rivers in the context of Sao Paulo, I focused on the area of the city centre, creating a map that intersects main tourist attractions in the city with water bodies that are often covered and are mainstream not recognized as existent. By connecting the bodies of water with key city locations, I developed a transportation path for urban cycling in the city through these key points. By cycling in this Aqua path, users will enhance their connection to the environment understanding how the topopgraphy of the city is influences by the hidden rivers. This project can further expand into bringing other agents of the Urban River Movement in conversation with the environment, such as by incorporating indigenous histories into bike tours, or connecting water sources in the area to bring awareness to environmental action to be made in the neighbourhood (which was the caxe of "Ocupe e Abraçe". The map will inform not only a new way to navigate through the city, but will be supported by a clothing line, specifically designed for urban bike commuters, which will engage with these city locations and its intersecting rivers through design, shape and prints.
PROJECT 2: URBAN BIKE COMMUTERS ILLUSTRATION AND GARMENT MAKING
This fashion collection has the goal to fill a gap for urban commuter clothing that is designed for biking but is not bike wear, inherently; bring awareness to cycling as a commuter tool in an urban space that is currently redefining its sustainability; and bring different demographics to engage with an already existent city. The collection of clothing, made with recycled polyester and organic cotton is also composed of 9 different pieces, which can be worn in different ways to fulfill different cyclists’ needs including rainwear, casual/party wear, tops, bags and shoes. The clothing has drawings of the city and river references made in collaboration with an urbanist from the city, Rafael Gedanke, who was present in the process of developing collection, and whose drawings will be added to the clothes in the forms of print and embroidery. Each piece of clothing is not only a practical tool for city cycling, but a way to engage the wearer with geography, creating a conversation on the importance of looking at territory and its history in order to redefine sustainability and development in city urban planning.
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PROJECT 3: HIDDEN TOPOGRAPHIES SYMPOSIUM + ZINE
This project was created in collaboration with Julia Foote and Miriam Powell for the Dean's Honor Symposium, hosted by Eugene Lang College in the Spring Semester of 2018. We worked together under the guidance of faculty Colette Brooks to create a symposium that intersects our different topics: Internet Infrastructure, Suburban Horror Movies, and Hidden Rivers of Sao Paulo. Under the title of "Do you know where you are? - Hidden Topographies of Everyday Life", we challenges the structure of a traditional symposium and combined our topics to discuss hidden topographies and the intersection of private. local and global infrastructures. Alongside the symposium and a performative poem, we created a zine that depicts the main questions raised throughout out collaborative research.
1 2
PROJECT 3: HIDDEN TYPOGRAPHIES SYMPOSIUM + ZINE
3
PROJECT 1: AQUA-BIKE LANE
PROJECT 2: URBAN BIKE COMMUTERS ILLUSTRATION AND GARMENT MAKING
The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how.
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PROJECT 1: AQUA-BIKE LANE
Maps are often used as a tool for land control and surveillance. From the first cartographers delineating territories, to nation branding through mapping, it is often used for privatizing, nationalizing and defining the land. After studying the history of maps and their portrayals, I decided to create a map that has an opposite effect: rather than reinforcing the private space, it would engage the map-reader to explore public spaces, and discover the relationship between city, geography, history and different narratives of the places traced. Maps would be used to then "unmap" the unseen aspects of the territory and create possibilities of reengaging with a land from its original form.
looking at different maps of the area studies, I started recognizing important historical locations and landmarks I wanted to highlight. I chose those locations in collaboration with an urbanist from Sao Paulo, Rafael Gedanke. The next step was identifying how the underground rivers overlapped with this locations, and if it was possible to create a path that connected them through the waters.Â
CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
sam ple pa ge of ho w
the ma pl oo ks lik e
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the map of the city dictated the 9 locations chosen, and each location dictated the design process of the clothes designed. Alongside practical and user based research focusing on urban bike commuters, each design was inspired by the history, shape and geography of the location
PROJECT 2: URBAN BIKE COMMUTERS ILLUSTRATION AND GARMENT MAKING
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CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
PROJECT 3: HIDDEN TYPOGRAPHIES SYMPOSIUM + ZIN
CHAPTER 3: PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
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Now What? discussion and future suggestions
This booklet introduces different agents and organizations working around the rivers of Sao Paulo as a site for potential change. Uniting and categorizing these different agents and their social, environmental and economical impacts, can help us reflect on the importance of their actions and where do we fit in to make a change. The Urban River Movement is working together towards a common cause: the combination of Information spread through awareness, consciousness through education, and creating action through inspiration and example, (especially through public space intervention, group workshops, and educational projects). The social impact of the Urban River Movement is happening now, through community activities such as Ocupe e Abrace, social initiatives such as Rios e Ruas, artistic interventions such as Eduardo Srur and Angela Leon; Environmental work in Escola do Futuro and Praca da Nascente, among others, . Looking at these agents and their impacts on communities showed the potential of water bodies in Sao Paulo to be studied in a social context. What communities are reached, how they are impacted, how they can create more change by inspiring other communities and scaling network connections.. It also opens space for discussion of further actions and organizing that can potentialize individual actors work on impacting social, structural and environmental change. Moreover, looking at these projects with a holistic perspective, and connecting the different parts they address towards a common cause, opens space for future reflections and strategic building on the educational and infrastructural work around the rivers. Where and how can YOU engage/ strategize/ learn/ make a change?
In the future, it is important to ask: How can these actors can be interconnected? How is colonialism being taken into consideration in the approach of understanding river pollution and traffic? How is the discussion around indigenous dispossession and urban housing inequality being approached within this movements? Who is connecting traffic with Neocolonialism and the North American car market, explaining the interconnections between both? And this future is now. These actors are in ground now, and The Urban River movement is already a catalyst for urban change. Bringing light for future action and creating a platform for design within the movement is important, Including unheard or smaller voices to the movement, such as indigenous communities is important too. Only by recognizing this groups as a movement can we maps strengths and weaknesses and work toward perfecting an environment that thinks about environmental change through social inclusiveness and education,Indigenous inclusiveness is also the most important way to bring a local discourse into present definitions of sustainability. Only doing so, people can be really educated in a holistic scope about the current noninclusiveness of history and story telling of Sao Paulo. Future work and research definitely needs to be done to address what voices are and are not yet heard in the Urban River Movement, How can new voices be included? How can you bring your voice and experiences into an initiative/ plan/project/dream? I hope the suggestion of the Urban River Movement helps the organizing of these groups and the architecting of future partnerships and plans, I also hope other individuals such as myself engage with the movement adding their personal skills to enhance awareness and community inclusion to the city.
“To start this journey, just follow the course of the rivers. It’s simple! Water always finds the smoothest surface, and goes downhill. Look around you and think of which street has the path that water is most likely to follow”... “ See the tree on your right? Touch its trunk. Do you see how moist it is close to the soil? That is because there is water in the underground, which is necessary for these species to survive!”... “can you hear the water? If you listen carefully, you will notice a shy noise of water coming from that manhole."
CIDADE AZUL, Audio guide
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- Metcalf, Alida C. 1992. Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil : Santana De Parnaiba, 15801822. Berkeley: University of California Press. - Andrade, Oswald de, 1991.. Translated by Leslie Bary. "Cannibalist Manifesto". Latin American Literary Review. Pittsburgh: Dept. of Modern Languages, Carnegie-Mellon University. 19 (38): 38–47. JSTOR 20119601. Retrieved 2015-07-22 - Algaze, Guillermo. 2008. Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization : The Evolution of an Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. - Chiaradia Clóvis. Dicionário De Palavras Brasileiras De Origem indígena. Limiar, 2008 - Auroville. Sri Aurobindo Society, 1978. - Bueno, Jose. (2017, December). Personal Telephone interview. - Cidade Azul. Audioguia Cidade Azul, Sao Paulo, Brazil. - Daisa, Cittarani jana. Letters from a Forest School. National Book Trust, 2007 - Designova. Rios e Lagoas Não São Esgoto. Cidade Azul, cidadeazul.org/. .
.- E stes, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Women Archetype. Ballantine Books, 1995 - Estrella, Marco, et al. Caçadores De Rios Perdidos Tentam Salvar as Nascentes De São Paulo. EL PAÍS, SigaNos Em Siga-Nos Em Twitter Siga-Nos Em Facebook, 23 Nov. 2016, brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2016/11 /22/politica/1479840613_351185 .html. - Entre Rios. Directed by Caio Silva Ferraz. Sao Paulo, Brazil: SENAC-SP, 2009. Gois, Ancelmo. Governo Temer Corta Em 43% Orçamento Do Ministério Da Cultura. Ancelmo - O Globo, blogs.oglobo.globo.com/ancel mo/post/governo-temercorta-em-43-orcamento-doministerio-da-cultura.html. Exame. 2014. "As 10 Cidades mais Populosas do Brasil". https://exame.abril.com.br/bra sil/as-200-cidades-maispopulosas-do-brasil/ -Murphy, Gretchen. Hemispheric Imaginings the Monroe Doctrine and Narratives of U.S. Empire. Duke University Press, 2005
- O Projeto Tietê e o Sonho Da Despoluição. Superinteressante, 31 Oct. 2016, Retrieved from super.abril.com.br/ideias/oprojeto-tiete-e-o-sonho-dadespoluicao/. Rios & Ruas, rioseruas.wordpress.com/.
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Outras Palavras. 2016. São Paulo, Território Indígena?". https://outraspalavras.net/blog/ 2016/07/20/sao-pauloterritorio-indigena/
- Soares, Will. Homem Em Trampolim' é Atração Em Intervenção Artística No Rio Pinheiros. Retrieved from G1 Globo. São Paulo, 17 Sept. 2014, g1.globo.com/saopaulo/noticia/2014/09/homemem-trampolim-e-atracao-emintervencao-artistica-no-riopinheiros.html. - The Blue City: Green River. Retrieved from YouTube, 16 Mar. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch? v=vNB6n35p23E&feature=youtu .be.
Works Cited and Referenced
- Rocha, Paulo Mendes da. Paulo Mendes Rocha. Cosac Naify, 2006.
This work would not have been possible without the wonderful work by previous researchers and artists. Thank you!
THESIS COMMITTEE: ALEXANDRA DELANO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR & CHAIR OF GLOBAL STUDIES RACHEL HEIMAN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY & CHAIR OF URBAN STUDIES