Everything and

The Spanish artist group Boa Mistura believes that poverty is not an absolute barrier to richness of experience. The art collective has picked out six vielas (“alleys”) in Sao Paulo’s Brasilandia favela for a beautification program. This Brasilandia resident steps out of her home, and all that has changed since the day before is that the word belezura (“beautiful”) has been painted on the walls that—some would say—close her in. The “Light in the Alleys” project is based on the premise that art is a tool for illumination in the daily life of so-called rundown communities.

4

More than 3,000 people scrape out a living by scavenging from 10,000 tons of waste deposited daily at Rio de Janeiro’s Jardim Gramacho landfill, the largest dump in all of Latin America. Ahead of the Rio+20 United Nations sustainable development summit to be held from June 13 to 22, the Rio de Janeiro City Hall has shut down the 36-year-old landfill. The city plans to transform the trash pit into a park, but estimates the land will take at least 15 years to recover. There is no estimate for when the lost sources of income will be renewed.

4

An ethnic Rakhine man holds homemade weapons as he walks in front of houses that were set alight during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe, on June 10, 2012. Northwest Burma was tense, after sectarian violence engulfed its largest city, with Reuters witnessing rival mobs of Muslims and Buddhists torching houses and police firing into the air to disperse crowds.

3

Ohaguro is black tooth wax used by Maiko for that brief period of ‘Erikae’ — turning their collar from red to white — when they graduate from Maiko to Geisha. Ohaguro was originally done with black ink several times a week to maintain the color, in modern times, a black wax is used and rubbed onto the teeth with the finger. Traditionally this practice was for the wealthy, female members of the household would begin Ohaguro upon reaching adulthood. Ohaguro was considered to be more beautiful the blacker the teeth were.

(Source: malformalady, via androphilia)

3406

delucazade:

Rosa

Rosa, b. 1929, Saumlaki, Tanimbar, South Moluccas. During the war, Rosa deliberately had gotten pregnant because her friend wanted to marry her rather than the girl arranged for him. The village chief, who had arranged the marriage partner for Rosa’s friend, sent Rosa to a Japanese brothel in the city. There she was forced into prostitution while she already was several months pregnant. At the end of her pregnancy, she returned to her village, where the baby died soon after birth. Her friend blew off his arranged marriage and married her after all. That saved her honor. After the war, the village kept quiet about the whole affair. “That is our secret. They felt compassion for me because they knew I had been forced. We never told the children anything - I am too ashamed for that. Even though there’s nothing I could do about it.”

Jan Banning

(Source: pakizah, via cobranoir)

23

Durham (1965)

Sunday Times Magazine, wrote: “Coal Mine Board of Directors carefully respond to criticism from conservationists to ensure that the pony get good care … conditions to improve the well that underground now little to do with Horse protection associations, only urges the coal mine board of directors each year to every pony arrangements once the floor of the holidays, thus speeding up the mechanization for the total liberation of these ponies.”

2