“Soon after I graduated in architecture “As an architect and urbanist specialized from USP, the crisis of the Fernando Collor in popular housing, informal urbanization, government arose and there was not much urban design and the urbanization of work around here. It was 1991. I decided to favelas, I came to work with inequality move to Japan, which was experiencing in the city, using my knowledge to help its economic bubble. Living in Tokyo, those who have been excluded from I worked for some years in an architecture public policies, to encourage access to a firm. But I liked working with art and dignified dwelling, to quality architecture, slowly left architecture to be an artist. to a residential space where one can begin I stopped designing a physical world, but to live with full citizenship. A pioneering my artworks have always been influenced work with the squatters’ invasions and by architecture and urban planning. The camps that began with the construction main character in my paintings is the of Brasília brought me to Holland and interior settings, buildings and landscapes, then to Guinea‑Bissau, where I began an whether imaginary or real. The years went international career that brought me to by, and to widen my horizons I moved to more than thirty countries. In those years, New York. These personal moves enabled I resided in Holland, Guinea-Bissau, Egypt, me to gain a better understanding of Kenya and Saudi Arabia, and worked Brazil. The distance from my country of with a certain frequency and continuity origin allowed me to reflect on my cultural in countries such as Bulgaria, Moldavia, background and to think about how my Cuba, Bolivia and Brazil, as an international worldview was constructed. I do not regret consultant. My identity and cultural base having left my country as a young man. were fundamental for interacting with a Thanks to the education and the cultural diversity of social, political and economic heritage acquired in Brazil, I had a solid contexts, and to better understand tangible basis for achieving an international career.” and intangible social processes. The foundations constructed in my interaction with the excluded population in Brazilian cities became a comparative advantage in my professional activity in other countries, helping me to contextualize and deepen my search for adequate solutions, in a constant exchange and learning process.”
Oscar Oiwa, New York, United States
Claudio Acioly, Nairobi, Kenya