Olympic Favela

In many of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, the city’s housing authority, Secretaria Municipal de Habitação (SMH), has been removing families from their homes and demolishing those homes to commence infrastructure projects for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. These families are evicted, often forcible without much, if any, notice. In late 2012 the photographer Marc Ohrem-Leclef set out to portray the people directly and indirectly affected by these evictions as well as the residents organizing their neighbors in resistance to SMH’s abuse of power. The result of the project is the new publication Olympic Favela. Many of Olympic Favela's subjects are represented by two photographs. One portrait and one image featuring the resident carrying an emergency flare, which represents the resident’s struggle to save his home from destruction, and also the ideas of liberty, independence, resistance, and emergency. The flare also alludes to the core symbol of the Olympic Games, the Olympic Torch. The other portrait is a close up that presents the resident as an individual. The striking images in this book illustrate the complexity Brazil’s rapid economic growth but persistent economic inequality. Ohrem-Leclef notes that, at the end of each encounter his subjects sent him off with the phrase "Vai com deus" ("go with God"), a striking statement by people about to lose their family homes.