People move up and down the stairs of the 22-storey-high Prestes Maia 911 building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil. The building lacks proper electricity, water, plumbing and an elevator. In 2003 over 1,500 people, along with the support of the Movement for the Urban Roofless or MSTC – the counterpart of the rural landless movement MST – occupied the building in an effort to find decent housing. They had to clean out from it enough garbage and sewage to fill 300 trucks.
There are over 3,000 unused buildings in São Paulo, while hundreds of Brazilians arrive in the city looking for jobs and better living conditions. The city population is already over 20 million and growing, with most people living in the sprawling slum areas.
The photographer Carlos Cazalis was born in Mexico, but lives in São Paulo.
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About Shahidul Alam
I am a Bangladeshi photographer, writer and activist with a special interest in education, new media and ICT. I was a research tutor at London University where I obtained a PhD in organic chemistry before taking up photography as a profession. I am a former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and set up the award winning Drik Picture Library. I also set up the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography and the DrikNews photo agency. I am the director of Chobi Mela the festival of photography in Asia.
My work has been shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Royal Albert Hall in London, Le centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. I have chaired the World Press Photo international jury. I am an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a board member of the National Geographic Society and the Eugene Smith Foundation.
I am currently visiting professor of photography at the University of Sunderland. I have lectured at Harvard, UCLA and Stanford universities in the USA, Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and Universidade Eduaro Monldane in Mozambique and Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK. I was one of the Masters in the Joop Swart Masterclass organised by World Press Photo.
My new book “My Journey as a Witness” has been selected as one of the “Best Photo Books of 2011” by American Photo.
