Vila Mimosa

Working on my book, I have spent a lot of time in Vila Mimosa, a red-light district which is located in Rio. It has an interesting history which I won't get into at the moment, but let's just say it's been around for a while. Prostitution in Brazil exists in many forms of service and of course encompasses different classes of prostitutes. There are the expensive high-status ones, who mainly work privately or through an agency and only do house calls. Some have pictures on websites and accrue their clients online. There are strip clubs as well as plain dance clubs filled with them. Sex workers who work on the street are ubiquitous, through time I have learned to recognize them quite easily (since Brazilians tend to dress on the skimpy side, foreigners can have trouble distinguishing them). Most of the street workers work for themselves, and simply go to a random hotel with their clients. But there are also those who bring clients back to brothels, and therefore have to pay the "house"-which is the case of Vila Mimosa.

Vila Mimosa is one of the craziest places I have ever seen!! It is a small street with a couple of dozens of brothels which function 24 hours per day. Loud music is constantly blaring from every venue, which also happen to be bars and places to just hang out. Vila Mimosa is quite dangerous and sketchy to put it mildly, however completely fascinating! Some of the women actually live there, but from my research most do not. Of course each client and lady have to negotiate pricing as every experience is different, but the norm around there is about 30 Reais per half hour (about $13 USD). To photograph Vila Mimosa and it's colorful people was an extremely difficult task! First, it's just plain dangerous, and second the people there are hard to trust as well as difficult to convince to be photographed. The owners as well do not appreciate photography as being a pimp IS considered illegal and photos can lead to denunciation.

Chor Boogie and I decided that the Vila could use a beautiful mural, we wanted to interpret street art with true street life. I acquired the connections and permission to paint there, and we were hosted by Vagner doNasc, a talented local artist who painted together with Chor. It was quite the spectacle and center of attention as always!