by Phuong-Cac Nguyen in Culture on 11 February 2014

 

Plastic furniture ubiquitous at cheap botecos in Brazil made to look like they were riddled with bullets (and sold at high-design prices), a chair created from wood scraps that was inspired by discarded furniture designers once saw in a favela, couture dresses conceived with help from residents of a Brazilian slum: these are just a handful of examples of “Favelization.” It’s a term that Adriana Kertzer has named the movement of fashion and furniture designers, filmmakers and artists who are “misappropriating” symbols and stereotypes of the favela to make their products more appealing to non-Brazilians. Kertzer, a New York-based lawyer-turned-art-consultant, transformed her observations into a master’s thesis for Parsons that will now be getting wide release…