Pressure to Produce

Okay, one month down, one month left. I am start­ing to brain storm what to do with the remain­der of my time here. I feel like the three weeks I have when the course ends is just enough time to begin but not fin­ish some­thing. The big ques­tion is do I work on pro­duc­ing some­thing or do I vol­un­teer and watch the pro­duc­tion. I do feel the pres­sure to pro­duce some­thing, as usu­ally when I go away I come back with pic­tures. This is a dif­fer­ent set up though. And I am burnt out. My last semes­ter at school was a real bat­ter­ing, despite a cou­ple gems of professors.

I have thought about pho­tograph­ing the process of TV Roc, the cable sta­tion run out of Rocinha, the more devel­oped favela in Zona Sul. We vis­ited the sta­tion last week. The peo­ple there were ener­getic, very capa­ble, and many spoke some Eng­lish, which could help me out. When the class vis­ited a crew inter­viewed many class mem­bers about their per­cep­tions of the favela and their rea­sons for being here.

tvRoc

Another thing that has been fas­ci­nat­ing me the process of the Pan Amer­i­can games and the neg­a­tive impact on var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties. I saw a news­pa­per arti­cle about how cer­tain fave­las near Copaca­bana beach and along the major high ways will be occu­pied by police dur­ing the games. Gay pride has also been rescheduled.

In the mean time maybe I’ll occupy myself with pho­tograph­ing mushed cock­roaches on the side­walks of the can­ti­nas at night or some­thing artsy and pas­sive. Today, we’re off to Ciu­dade de Deus.