6/7 Cardboard Favelas - 2018/19

Favelas are housing structures also called shantytowns in low income neighborhoods. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil many favela's were built outside the city on forested hillsides that ringed the city. In 1897 soldiers had camped on a hill where the thorny favela plant grows in the northwest region and made temporary housing out of shacks. When some of the soldiers returned to Rio, they settled on forested hillsides, waiting to be granted land that was promised to them by the government. Their makeshift living conditions were a reminder of the "favela" hills, the term stuck. 6/7 students created favelas from cardboard and added hints of color to the otherwise drab dwellings.