Projeto Queto Finishes 2nd semester of workshops
On October 11th, Projeto Queto officially encloses the 2nd series of workshops graffiti and audio production (DJ). The workshops will be closed with a big live performance on the main square of the community of Morro do Queto. The participants of both workshops will show the neighborhood what they’ve been learning in the last few months. The students of the graffiti workshop wil paint the walls of the main square in the community called Apoteose, while the fresh audio-producers will present their first real mix-tapes for live for the local audience.
Since September 2008, the coordinators and teachers of Projeto Queto in Rio de Janeiro have been working hard to build their own cultural centre and implement several activities for the neighborhood.
The first phase was to renovate and transform the available space in the old factory hangar of Morro do Queto, into an inspiring place to work and learn. The local team Marcão, Poronga, Dibel and Nação members Chico, Preas, Machintal, Stile and Gais, managed to coordinate the construction workers, the electrician Lilinho and all the curious questions from the neighbours. Was it going to be a club? A bar? A cyber café? What was happening in the former vip-lounge of the Sunday night weekly Baile Funk? With time passing by, it got clear that this was going to be the first cultural centre of Morro do Queto, something that no other organization had ever wanted to do before.
Click here to see the pictures in Construction Projeto Queto 2008 Gallery
Phase 1
With the construction work done and impatient kids hanging around wanting to participate with anything going on in the atelier, finally the subscription for the workshops could take place. We wanted to start small and see if everything was going well. In January 2009 the first classes started divided in graffiti (basic design and painting) by Nação, and silk screen (basic design and printing techniques) by MiCamichula
Both workshops where visited by small groups of around 10 people that would come twice a week for two hours. The age of the students varied from 12 to 27 years. The first goal of both workshops was to stimulate a little discipline and create circumstances in which the participants would get in contact with a world they’d never seen before. Many girls wanted to participate in the silkscreen workshop because they thought they would learn how to make cloths. When they discovered it had all to do with design, photography, photoshop and the technical part of printing they were amazed and inspired to learn more about it.
In the graffiti workshop the focus laid on the use of colours, making forms and letters. For many of the students it was the first time that they where asked to paint their names on paper with pencils. Many students came in contact with art in general for the first time during this workshop.
Click here to see the pictures of the Silk workshop
Click here to see the pictures of the Graffiti workshop
Phase 2
After the first phase of Projeto Queto, some inconveniences where adjusted in the coordination of the project, the time schedule that would fit better for the students and a clear division of tasks.
Due to the successful first phase we decided to expand the area as planned. We bought the equipment to start the compact audio studio. The location wasn’t perfect to build a real studio as the desire for the real owners of the building wanting to take the building back at any moment. We decided to make a mobile studio, compact, small and equipped to start only with digital audio editing and remixing. The teachers Machintal and Marcelinho wrote a very step by step manual in which students can learn about rhythms, music in general, sampling and recording with software such as ACID and Soundforge. The reason to start with digital audio only is that many of the students wouldn’t easily have access to vinyl, which would be a little frustrating for them.
Click here to see pictures of the Workshop Audio Production
It takes a while before everything is working perfectly and slowly the atelier changes is a beautiful cultural centre with many more workshops to come.
