Emerging in the 1980s in São Paulo, pixação quickly became one of the most aggressive and controversial forms of expression to date, turning its artists, the pixadores, into one of the most marginalized social groups in the city. Constantly in search of adrenaline, social resistance and recognition, the pixadores enter the city center from the outskirts in order to assert their existence through bold nocturnal actions – nightly escapes from the social exclusion that weighs on their daily lives. Seeing as pixação declares itself as a visual challenge against elite aesthetics and also stands as a clear reflection of the city’s conflicted social context, the main objective of this photo essay is to question the social structures that drive a generation of youth to feel that their only creative outlet lies in the degradation of the urban landscape.
