Casa do Povo

Founded in 1946 in the Bom Retiro neighbourhood of São Paulo by a constellation of anti-fascist Jewish associations, Casa do Povo was established as both a cultural centre and a place dedicated to remembering those who died in the Holocaust. The slogan ‘never again’ took the form of an activist project, a place open to radical otherness, to the urgency of contemporary struggles, to minorities, to alternatives. Over the decades, a wide variety of activities have been organised there: a Yiddish choir, a constructivist school, a politically engaged newspaper, and an experimental and popular theatre. During the period of military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), Casa do Povo naturally became a hub for all forms of resistance and avant-garde activity.

Since the early 2010s, this house of the people (literal translation of Casa do Povo) has reinvented itself, remaining faithful to an anti-fascist political line and a fluid mode of operation that leads to practices very different from those often associated with art centres. The commissioned works and programmes – particularly educational ones – developed by Casa do Povo coexist with the use that some twenty associated collectives make of the space: a popular boxing academy, a printing studio, a psychoanalysis clinic, a fashion cooperative and choirs. It does not matter whether their activities are professional or amateur, social, artistic or cultural: these distinctions do not apply here. They have the keys to the space and participate in its management and programming.