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Petare, Venezuela

Posted on November 14, 2019November 14, 2019 by Seb Toussaint

“Amistad” (= friendship) chosen by Chipi for his friends who are with him in the slum, those who migrated to Colombia and those who got killed.

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New print available on my online shop! (link in the bio) Limited edition of 35 prints. 40x50 cm Pigmentary print on 300 gsm mat paper Numbered and signed by the artist. "Vida" is the Spanish word for "Life". It is a word I was asked to paint 3 times over the last few months in slums I worked in for Share The Word Project. I wrote it in French in the Ivory Coast, then in arabic in Palestine and in Spanish in Venezuela. As a got back home from Venezuela I thought that the word "vida" says so much about the slums of Caracas. People are making up for the lack of outside help and the fact that 15% of the population has left the country. They compensate by being more alive than ever, caring for each other, and being very active in their communities. Even an extremely brutal can't take away life. And as Venezuelans will tell you quoting the Bible : "Mientras hay vida hay esperanza"! (="While there is life, there is hope") --- Shipment worlwide apart from North Korea, Palestine, Sudan, South Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen. I'm very sorry about this, I know it's unfair, I hate seeing these countries being excluded, I just can't find a way to send the prints there. I guess I'll just have to carry on painting murals in those places. #print #art #artwork #sebtoussaint #patterns #artforsale #vida #urbanart #contemporaryart #geometry

After cycling around the world in 2011 and 2012, I realised how a large portion of the world's population lives excluded, and I thought of a modest way to try and tackle this. I started “Share The Word Project” in 2013 because I thought I could use art as a tool to make marginalised populations a little more visible. The communities I've worked with face all kinds of problems, but wherever I've been, the feeling and the reality of being excluded is always striking. I know how important it is to be made part of a collective. It's what people do with me all the time, and it's the greatest feeling. I can only imagine that being excluded must be the worst feeling. I arrived here in a neighbourhood that isn't mine, in a far away city, in a foreign country on a different continent. But in a matter of weeks I've been made part of the community. My work is the result of an artist meeting a community. My murals are given birth to like this. Therefore I have to congratulate the community of San Blas, Petare in Caracas for doing everything they could in order to make the project work! Together during the last month, we showed a very positive side of Petare on social media, on radio stations, in cultural venues and at the UCAB university. We made people from the outside come to visit a neighbourhood they would never have been to. Also, I've received many message of Venezuelans living outside Petare, and often living abroad, saying that the project has given them hope, or has made them see their country in a different way. One could have thought that Petare would be very politicaly divided, and that the lack of food, water and power might have made the place hostile in many ways. But from my experience, this crisis is making people care for their neighbours even more, it's making them think of new ways of organising their communities. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that Venezuela has to suss out in order to pull forwards. But if there's one thing that gives me hope, it's the people.

Katy chose the word "Resiliencia" (=resilience). During the past month, I've been staying at her house with my friend/assistant Dudu. A year and a half ago, I started looking for contacts in Caracas because I wanted to know more about the situation there and the possibility of an episode of "Share The Word Project". Somehow we got in touch and during a whole year she sent me messages telling me I can stay at her place and paint in her neighbourhood. I usually invite myself into slums, but this time I thought I'd accept the invitation. Smart move. Katy is an absolute exemple for her community but also for Venezuela in general. In a slum full of litteraly hungry people, with drug trafficking and political polarisation, she managed to unite people with brooms. She started by sweeping the streets to clear the rubbish that the government no longer collects, and got people to join. She then started to think that art could be the one thing that would unite everyone in her neighbourhood. This is why she wanted me to come over, and why she's getting other local artists like @dagor1 to paint on her streets. As a human being, Katy is an inspiration. She focuses on those little positive things amidst a brutal crisis. She spends her days sweeping the streets, painting murals, solving day-to-day problems in the slum, taking the slum kids out to art galleries, helping those who can't eat, taking care of her own family, giving talks at events... And all this while surviving in a house without water and with regular power cuts, and of course, very little money. I could have easily thought that Venezuela would be totally fucked. But I met Katy. A Venezuelan incarnation of resilience. @camargokgh #ShareTheWordProject #streetart #resilience #resiliencia #mural #art #contemporaryart #urbanart #contemporaryurbanart #geometry #design #slum #sebtoussaint #arteurbano #sanblas #petare #caracas #venezuela #hacemosciudad #ElArteNosUne #latinamerica

I can see the crisis in the emptiness of streets at night. I can smell the crisis in our bathroom as we have no water to pull the flush. I can hear the crisis when a car comes to a halt and the brakes are screaming that they need to be replaced. I can taste the crisis in the plainness of the rice I'm eating. I can touch the crisis on the smooth rubber tires of buses whose owners can't afford new ones. It's everywhere around me, in everything I do. The country has been hit hard, and its population is paying an extremely high price. But somehow, from somewhere, people are fighting back, organising themselves, re-thinking their neighbourhoods and just not giving up. After working in so many crisis-hit areas, I see resilience as a weapon used by humans all over the world in extreme situations. For the first time since I started this project in 2013, someone has asked me to paint the word "resilience". . #caracas #Venezuela #streetphotography #latinamerica #urbanlandscape #urbanphotography #city #crisis #venezuelacrisis #photography

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