Papergirl Portland from abraham ingle on Vimeo.
In 2009, Abraham Ingle brought Berlin’s Papergirl Project to Portland. Over 200 pieces of original 2d art were displayed in a gallery, then rolled up, and distributed via bicycle to randomly selected people on the streets of Portland.
(click to enlarge)
Over a few weeks this summer three friends (Simon, Paul & Hanno) spent time together in Naples. In the suburb of Scampia, well know from the film “Gomorra” they painted a giant songbird on four floors of a building that is known as a hotbed of drug trafficking in Italy.
The artist have forward this description of their project (translated from German):
“Naples, Scampia, le vele – what actually is the problem?
Naples, the capital of the province of Campania is struggling with the same problems as large parts of southern Italy. The socio-economic situation of the city is characterized by high unemployment, a major importance of the informal economic sector, infrastructural deficiencies, profound corruption and the dominance of mafia structures. There is no improvement in sight, state and EU subsidies to seep or be wasted in crazy building projects.
At almost any place this complex issue that is fast becoming apparent as in Scampia. The neighborhood was built in the 1970s to the 1990s in the northern outskirts of Naples, where previously only fields. At 4 km ² approximately 62,000 residents are registered. 50% – 75% of working age are unemployed. These figures are for example the 1,600 Roma living in two camps do not even counting.
Scampia is probably the biggest drug market in Europe, it is hardly possible to find a legal job. The lure of earning as an observation post or drug courier easy money, can not resist, many adolescents and young men. Many of them are convicted before the age of majority to prison or killed.
A particularly notorious block of flats in Scampia are le vele (sails) because of its triangular shape. Far beyond the city limits of Naples, they gained notoriety as symbols of precisely those social ills, for violent crime and drug trafficking. But since vele conducted in a few months ago and so many arrests of drug trafficking has been contained, there is no security for the people and no more work. Who has the opportunity to go away. Internationally known are the vele mainly by the film “Gomorra”, which plays a large part in the vela Gialla (yellow sail) and was also filmed there.
The public discourse on Scampia, which the district stigmatized as a zona bruta, such as “ugly parts,” which is characterized by prejudice against the local population. The feeling of marginalized and shame often leads to withdrawal from public life and development of a general blockade. Among the residents suffer vele particularly strong because they were made by the media for years a symbol of the malavita (underworld criminals) Scampias.
Paul in Naples
After I completed my course in Milan, was my idea of Italy is not yet satisfied. I wanted the South to learn yet another Italy.
Through a friend, I made contact with “rom chi chi e no“, an organization that has provided years of youth work in Scampia. I started with “rom chi e chi no help.” While playing with the children, I soon realized how very different are the lives of these children of which my little sisters in Tubingen.
A nine year old boy told me that his father and brother were dead, that their blood had run out of many holes in the body and head, and that his cousins were in prison. He told me that all this was only because of the drugs, even though they were poisonous, the people would kill each other because of them. Often I was asked whether the prison is far away from the place where I live in Germany. At first I did not understand the question until I realized that for many children Scampias the prison is simply the place where they visit their fathers when they are still alive.
Every day we learn of the many terrible things that happen in the world, but to hear children talk about these things and realize that they have actually experienced all that is not an “indifferent. Most amazing to me is how these children have learned to live with the situation. Like all children they want to have fun, let off steam and play football.
So I played football with them and they got to know better. They showed me her district, took me to his house and put me in front of their relatives.
Angelo, a 14-year-old boy showed me his vela: The upper floors are empty all the flats. In many lack the stairs, which would make an entering an apartment possible. The local authority removes them to prevent new people move in, because the vele will be demolished within a few years.
The apartments, which you can enter, tell countless stories. Mountains of rubbish piling up, dusty toys, knocked furniture, used syringes lying around. Few are still hanging posters on the walls, on which the idols and saints have seen the former residents. In some cabinets are still clothes in the kitchen they found kilos of pasta and canned tomatoes. The people who lived here seem to be fleeing moved away. In many doors and windows, bullet holes are visible. Stairwells are simply walled up, to impede the police intrusion. From leaky pipes and dripping water into the underground garage. The drop is combined between the two wings of the vela with the cries of mothers who call their children to eat a very strange noise, which the uneasy feeling that one has upon entering the vela, become stronger.
The vele intrigued me like no other place in Scampia. The tragedy of the whole region is discernible in these blocks. With a group of children, I painted one emptied apartment in the gialla vela. Before I returned to Germany, I was painting a five-story flower climbs the facade of the vela rossa (red sail) to show that it is possible to change the vele something.
“Il Cardillo” – Simon, Paul & Hanno in Scampia
The end of August 2009 I returned to Naples, this time joined by Hanno and Simon. We found the situation in Scampia unchanged.
For two weeks we painted almost every day in the vele on balconies, in stairwells and empty apartments. When we showed up with our buckets of paint, brushes and spray cans, children came running up and asked us if we had painted the flower and the other pictures. They asked us to paint on their floor in the hallway or on their balcony. Quickly it had spread that there were three German students who anmalten everything.
In us the desire was still to make something that can also see the people who do not live in the vele. Something for the whole Scampia.
This time we had chosen the vela celeste (sky blue sail). This can be seen perfectly from the great piazza Scampias and thus also provide the “mammoth”, a Cultural Center, the workshops, holiday programs and advice on all kinds of living situations for children and adolescents Scampias. Since the upper floors of the unoccupied vela almost complete, it was obvious, then paint the facade, even if they are partially achieved only by climbing.
The cardillo (Goldfinch, Goldfinch) is a bird that plays in the Neapolitan culture a major role. It is found in music, literature and film, while we see him always in a tiny cage, rarely flying. Because of its beautiful singing, he is placed in the cage next to cribs, to sing the children to sleep. Due to popular demand the protected cardillo in nature will be caught and sold on the black market.
The Cardillo, however, we have painted on the vela celeste, has escaped from his cage, he spreads his wings to loszufliegen. The observer, who put his eye on the vele, is ready for anything, except to such a mural. Many of our Italian friends, which we showed pictures of it, thought it automatically for a collage. Because it seemed impossible for them to paint three helpless German who do not even have the Neapolitan dialect powerful at this infamous of all places in Italy a bird of four storeys high.
This fact alone is a bright spot for the inhabitants of Scampia and vele.
The implementation of the Cardillos was only possible through the support of many of the inhabitants of the vele. These were happy about the fact that someone tried to bring color to the building, which would leave most of them right away. Often, we were told that we had achieved something unimaginable until a few months. Above all, the children showed great interest in our project, asked questions, praised or thanked us and applauding while we were painting.
The consistently positive feedback from the public Scampias and those who are trying for decades, mostly through voluntary work to create the foundation for improvement, encouraging us to go back as soon as possible to Naples. Meet friends again and to tackle together with the local population, other projects.
It’s also important to make it known that it not only gives the Scampia that you have correctly pointed out Roberto Saviano in his book “Gomorrah” by Matteo Garrone and in the film adaptation of the book, but it is also possible in Scampia ideas realize that have the potential to change something. Our experiences have shown us how grateful the local population positive momentum picks up and how friendly is received, if you unbiased as possible, engages with the people. These experiences, we want to divulge because an important step, which will entail improvements in living conditions for residents Scampias possible is the symbolic enhancement of their neighborhood. We therefore consider it necessary to address a wider public.”
