Sluminsider: Mathare, Nairobi

Sluminsider is a choral narrative that attempts to reveal the complexity of the slum of Mathare, one of the biggest shantytowns in Nairobi. The project of expansion of a street school, the Why Not Junior Academy, and the process of environmental improvement of the surrounding area, where a community agriculture initiative has been set up to replace an unauthorized dump, is the starting point from which to combine experiences and identities from very different disciplines, including architecture,design, agriculture, photography and video. This project is one of the case studies used for comparison and dialogue with the city of São Paulo. São Paulo Calling is a research project sponsored by the Segreteria de Habitaçao and coordinated by Stefano Boeri, which from January to June 2012 prompted designers, photographers, NGOs and international research groups to examine the informal settlements of Rome, Nairobi, Medellin, Mumbai, Moscow and Baghdad. For six months, an exhibition analyzed the characteristics, differences and causes of informal settlements, developing six workshops in the field in different favelas of São Paulo and organizing size encounters that made São Paulo the world capital of the debate on transformation of contemporary cities. Contributors: Liveinslums, Luca Astorri, Gaetano Berni, Elisabetta Bianchessi, Stefano Boeri, Fabio Campana, Francesco Careri, Eliene Corrêa Rodrigues Coelho, Maria Luisa Daglia, Francesco Faccin, Francesco Giusti, Helena Nosek, Silvia Orazi, Filippo Romano, Marianella Sclavi.