Felipe Carrelli Turns Abandoned Cars into Public Art in São Paulo

Last year, a car was abandoned on the street near where Brazilian artist Felipe Carrelli worked in <a href="http://inhabitat.com/recycling-co-operatives-in-sao-paulo-brazil-light-the-path-for-sustainable-development/" target="_blank">Sao Paulo</a>. It stayed there for six months, and homeless people began to sleep in it. The residents of the neighborhood became afraid the car would attract criminal activity, so they set fire to it. But after the fire, the car just sat there for a couple of weeks and eventually became a kind of a dump where people would throw their trash. So Carrelli transformed the neighborhood eyesore into a canvas for his art. Since that first intervention, some of Carrelli's neighbors have pitched in to help transform abandoned cars into public art installations.

One day, when Carrelli passed by, he had the idea to clean, paint and put some plants in the car to turn it from a dump into a work of art and a beautiful garden.

He shared this idea with friends Tobias Rodil and Thiago Carvalhaes and together, the three brought the idea to life.

The group got help from Carelli’s parents who live in the Sao Paulo countryside and donated a bunch of plants to the project.

They also got help from the organization, Festival Baixo Centro, that supports positive urban interventions in central Sao Paulo.

Carelli’s urban intervention was welcomed by the neighborhood, to the point where a lot of residents helped to beautify the car.

“People from the community were happy,” says Carrelli, “they helped us paint and also water the plants.”

As soon as the neighbors began to help, the urban intervention became a collective effort towards improving the neighborhood.

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So far, the group has transformed three abandoned cars into works of art and garden spaces. They plan to do more, as they have received nothing but good feedback from the neighborhoods they intervene in.