|
 Approximately 4,000 Brazilian artisans will start exhibiting work from all states of Brazil and from 26 other countries in the city of Olinda, capital of the state of Pernambuco, starting July 3. They will participate in the 10th edition of the Fenearte (Feira Nacional de Negócios do Artesanato - National Handicraft Business Fair).
The event, which will continue until July 12, is open to the public and should receive around 250,000 visitors, according to estimates by the fair's organizers. The government of Pernambuco promotes the event and is expecting a turnover of 22 million reais (US$ 11.2 million) in business deals during the ten days of the fair.
In 2009, besides maintaining countries that exhibited in the previous edition - such as Chile, Bolivia, Egypt, India and Portugal -, the fair will bring exhibitors from Argentina, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Mexico, Japan, Palestine, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Despite the presence of international work, 70% of the fair's premises will be occupied by handicraft from Pernambuco, says the general coordinator of the event, Roberto Lessa. "Our state is particularly wealthy," he says, "few compare to Pernambuco in terms of spontaneous generation of handicraft work."
Although the fair stands out for the diversity of handicraft techniques on display, it also features typical examples from each of the Pernambuco regions, according to Lessa. Among the techniques used by artists from the state are is clay modeling, leatherwork, and woodwork.
One of the most typical - clay sculptures of folkloric characters of Northeast Brazil - was made famous by Mestre Vitalino, an artisan who would turn 100 years old in July 10th, and who will be paid homage at the event.
The Bodega da Caatinga, a network of cooperatives formed by artisans and small-scale producers from the Northeast, is one of the exhibitors that will bring handicraft typical of the Northeast to the fair. Supported by a project of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the network comprises production from the states of Pernambuco, Alagoas, Bahia, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará. The Bodega provides advisory to its affiliates on means for producing in a sustainable way, and for adding value to products.
The most important aspect of the fair is the possibility of making contacts and promoting business, says Maurício Aroucha, the biologist in charge of providing guidance to the Bodega artisans. "If all that we do is encourage production in some remote location in the interior, who is going to go see it?"
This is his second time at Fenearte; the group has already taken part in fairs of the type in other states of Brazil. Aroucha explains that this enables the signing of agreements that bring the handicraft work to restaurant chains, hotels, snack bars and even international natural product companies.
Lessa, the event's coordinator, also highlights the fact that knowledge is exchange and there is direct contact between artists and the public. He explains that at several moments there will be artisans working amidst the passers-by.
Aroucha says that Fenearte is different from other events because its long duration, of ten days, increases attendance by families and even school trips. To him, this climate, which is not business-only, favors the promotion of the handicraft work.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.