(fr) Ce projet explore la scène artistique hip-hop contemporaine de São Paulo à travers des recherches sur le terrain, la photographie et la narration. Ce qui a commencé par une visite fortuite dans la ville s’est progressivement transformé en un engagement soutenu et immersif auprès d’artistes locaux, de collectifs et d’espaces culturels communautaires. Au cœur de cette exploration se trouve la Zona Autônoma Temporária (ZAT), une résidence d’artistes auto-organisée conçue comme un environnement anarchique et sans règles qui favorise l’expression artistique. Elle reprend les idées défendues dans l’essai de Hakim Bey, réunissant diverses pratiques créatives issues des arts visuels contemporains, du skate, du graffiti et des cultures de rue.
(en) This project explores São Paulo’s contemporary hip-hop art scene through on-the-ground research, photography and storytelling. What began as a chance visit to the city gradually developed into sustained, immersive engagement with local artists, collectives and grassroots cultural spaces. A central focus of this exploration is the Zona Autônoma Temporária (ZAT), a self-organised artist residency conceived as a rule-free, anarchic environment that fosters artistic expression. It embraces the ideas promoted in Hakim Bey’s essay, bringing together a variety of creative practices from contemporary visual art, skate, graffiti and street cultures.
After missing a flight, I found myself stranded in São Paulo and wondering why anyone would want to spend time in a concrete, grey, rainy, crime-ridden and polluted place such as this, while the golden beaches of Rio de Janeiro were a short distance away.
With nowhere to go, the next morning I called the only person I knew in São Paulo – a lawyer I had met the day before on a tour of the favelas near Copacabana. She lived in Vila Madalena, an area known for its artistic energy, lined with galleries, bookshops, cafes, street art and boutiques. To my relief, she offered me a place to stay and told me to meet her at an art gallery where a friend of hers, an artist and gallery assistant, would look after me.
My first afternoon in São Paulo.
This is how I met Enivo, an incredible painter who introduced me to São Paulo’s thriving hip-hop art scene, which led me to return six more times, staying for up to two months at a time. During one of my stays, I discovered the story of Zona Autônoma Temporária (ZAT), an artistic residency organised in January 2016 by the artist Tinho (Walter Nomura), and co-curated by the academic artist, Keila Alaver.
The residency was inspired by Tinho’s experience in Xucun, China, where he had participated in a similar project. Despite logistical challenges, including a lack of basic facilities, ZAT cultivated a deep sense of collaboration among artists from diverse backgrounds, including graffiti, street art, skate culture, and contemporary fine art. The environment was raw and immersive, requiring adaptability as artists negotiated space and resources while coexisting in close quarters.
Twenty-five artists spent ten days living and working together in a former convent, and BB gun battlefield, exchanging ideas, exploring artistic processes, and creating a unique body of work influenced by the space itself, allowing for nuanced critical reflection that challenged dominant art world paradigms. Discussions and informal forums played a crucial role in this process, foregrounding the importance of cognitive engagement alongside technical skill. The residency cultivated a unique hybrid environment where participants—from street, skate, graffiti, and contemporary visual art backgrounds—shared knowledge horizontally, dissolving conventional hierarchies and fostering mutual influence across disciplines.
ZAT functioned as a temporary autonomous space in which creative boundaries were actively redefined through dialogue, collaboration, and cohabitation. Through this convergence of lived experience, material experimentation, and reflexive dialogue, ZAT revealed the depth and sophistication of non-academic artistic practices. It expanded the perceived boundaries of contemporary art and offered a compelling model of bottom-up cultural production and grassroots cultural democracy—one that thrived outside institutional frameworks yet maintained a rigorous and critical engagement with the structures of artistic discourse.