Educating, creating and remembering are our central practices of being in a collective. In the Providence Gallery, we understand that access to knowledge, art and culture is not a privilege, but a right. Moreover, it is also a way of transforming reality. But we do not just want to access the places that have always been denied us, we work so that Morro da Providência is recognized as a territory that produces knowledge, creates new aesthetics and reinvents narratives.
Using memory as a tool of imagination and art as a political language, we create learning spaces that are born of listening, the body, the streets and the stories that resist. We value the encounter between popular knowledge and theoretical thinking, betting on educational processes that strengthen autonomy, collective creation and democratization of culture. We believe that Providence Hill is a living school where we learn and teach.
Building a life project in the slum is an act of resistance. In a context marked by inequalities, racism and erasures, planning our own future requires more than access to opportunities. It requires support, recognition, bonds and openness of paths. In this line of action, we understand that professional, personal and social life go together. Therefore, we promote training spaces that stimulate the development of technical and socio-emotional skills, strengthening self-esteem, the ability to choose and the imagination of possible futures.
Our goal is to support the inhabitants of Providence, especially young people and women, in the construction of trajectories with more autonomy and purpose, from the place they occupy in the world and the stories they carry. Among the initiatives developed are: Pre-vestibular Marielle Franco, which since 2019 has supported more than 50 students in university admission, and Project Porto do Saber, conducted in partnership with SESI/FIRJAN, focused on the training and employability of young people of Providence.
In the Providence Gallery, we view art as a living experience, form of expression and way of re-existence. In a reality where access to art and culture is limited by symbolic and material barriers, this line of action is dedicated to creating and sustaining own spaces of creation, where favela dwellers can see and be seen.
We promote initiatives that encourage experimentation in various artistic languages, expanding the access, production and circulation of cultural goods that reflect the aesthetics, affections and urgency of the territory. Among the projects developed in this line is the Festival Galeria Providence, which since 2017 transforms the hill into an open gallery, with more than 70 artists and interventions performed at 13 distinct points of the favela. We also performed continuous workshops and artistic practices, approaching residents of visual arts, music, theater, dance and multiple expressions of afrodiaspórico and popular culture.
We want to learn, but we can also teach. We look at the favela as a great school, a place of learning and teaching. Our knowledge is cultivated in struggle, orality, creativity of daily life and resistance to erasure. It is these knowledges, often devalued by traditional forms of knowledge, that sustain life and territory.
In this line of action, we seek to recognize, activate and value these local knowledge and doings, through collective practices, formative experiences and production of narratives that depart from the hill itself. Among the projects of this line, we highlight the Training in MediEsquina, course that qualifies young residents of Providence in cultural mediation, uniting historical contents and communication strategies created by the participants themselves. The visits guided by the territory become, thus, moments of listening, exchange and symbolic re-appropriation of the place where they live, strengthening ties and the feeling of belonging.
