Juxtapoz Magazine – No Olho da Rua (In the Eye of the Street)

In 1995, artists Julian Germain, Patricia Azevedo and Murilo Godoy began working on No Olho da Rua (In the Eye of the Street) in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. Their objective was to put cameras into the hands of street children, young people living chaotic lives on the margins of society who had rarely, if ever, been photographed or made pictures themselves. They envisioned not a regimented, overly supervised process, but to grant them the freedom to independently make their own pictures, of anything they wanted, where and when they chose. Fifty young people were given the most basic plastic point and shoot cameras and shown how to use them. From the outset they not only enjoyed enormous pleasure from photography, but also produced astonishing images. As a result, the project has continued ever since, albeit on a sporadic and occasional basis, depending on availability of resources.