Slivers of São Paulo

São Paulo is in the mega-city elite. To have small splinters of it lodged in my consciousness wherever I go is a great fortune.

A Mega-city is a place where you can stand in the middle of human diversity, its failings and its extraordinary achievements, at arm’s reach from the vital pulse of the human condition. Our first great collaboration was the city, a place to strip away our inventive boundaries, to be annoyed, attracted to, repulsed, in emotional and intelligent partnership with our family, our tribe, as it grows, now to millions. The city is the result of language and the cause of publishing. We used to move to town, then the city to launch our multiplicity, but now the city is the common landscape, it is the mega-city who’s invitation we both accept and extend.

The eight-year-old girl above is the daughter of an ex-prisoner who is transforming his favela (slum) through artistic projects that gets the kids busy, creative, while protecting their future.