There’s a photograph of the artist Pablo Picasso drawing in his studio with Paloma (his daughter) that encapsulates what I find so compelling about him. In that moment, they drew on the same level, both of them intent on what they’re doing. Not only did he take what she was doing seriously, her freedom was what he was aiming for in his own work.

Last October I saw a stunning exhibition of Picasso sculptures at MoMA in New York. The surging energy in his work was invigorating, undeniable and fresh. It’s evident in almost everything he created. His work vibrates with unbridled creativity, curiosity and a voracious hunger for life. It’s what art in all forms is about, an expression of what it means to be alive on this earth.

Sculpture finds him at play more than his painting. Maybe, because he considered himself a painter first, he was liberated to play with sculpture. His sculpture was unbound, and included wood, plaster, pebbles, metal, clay, found objects, bronze and assemblage. To put a pair of bicycle handlebars together with saddle and see that they can be a bull, a bird running along with two forks for legs, the essence of duckness (or is it a goose?), the endless small clay sketches of animals, people and fawns. Often made in minutes, they’re the physical manifestations of thoughts running through a mind, lyrical thoughts which embody life, not endlessly laboured over compositions. 

They’re directly the essence of his famous quote “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”.

Part of my job as an author and illustrator is going into schools and reading my stories to children. I also draw with them, showing them how to draw the characters in my books. Without fail, I’m awed by the sheer energy and life in their drawings. They’ve drawn following me, but their drawings always have a zeal that makes mine seem devoid of life. I don’t think its only innocence, its the directness, there’s a kind of truth in them, no disguise. They draw what they feel without compromise. Adults learn to compromise, to worry about what others think and rein themselves in. Children just put it out there. They’re less concerned with being polite, so their drawings contain, honestly, what they feel. 

Picasso too was not overly concerned with being polite. For all its downsides, along with that came incredible freedom of expression that ran untrammeled into so many areas.

By the age of 11 children have somehow learnt that there’s a right way to draw, and a wrong way. There isn’t.

I’ve recently been working with the fantastic CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) on the importance of visual literacy. I see children arrive in primary education expressing themselves freely and intuitively through drawing. Expressing themselves in ways they can’t yet verbally. They’re also able to understand sophisticated feelings and emotions when they “read” a picture that they don’t yet have the vocabulary for. Yet, when they leave at 11, pictures are out of the equation and too many feel unconfident about drawing. They’ve somehow learnt that there’s a right way to draw, and a wrong way. There isn’t. The only thing that matters is that you do it and you express yourself through it. It’s an incredibly valuable resource that they’re losing.

Picasso painted and sculpted without constraint to express himself. He shows us all aspects of life, light and dark, its sorrows, its joys and its pleasures. This is why he inspires.

There’s another quote of his I like,

“Inspiration exists... but it has to find you working”.

2016

Can a seemingly inevitable course of action be changed?

It's a question I keep asking myself since being asked by the British Council to take part in FLUPP, a literary festival that just took place in one of the unpacified favelas of Rio. 

Never having been in South America, my overriding perception of favela life came from the 2002 film City of God, a brutal and shocking work portraying life in the slums of Rio. That perception was reinforced with a quick 'Google Images' search of Vigario Geral (the favela where FLUPP took place). 

Vigario Geral is one of around a thousand favelas in Rio. Infamous for the massacre that took place there in 1993. The court case continues so details remain unclear. Allegedly, a 'death squad' made up of policemen entered the favela and shot dead 21 innocent people in retaliation for the killing of four police officers by drug traffickers. 

Understandably, suspicion of the police runs high. Which is why when we arrive at the outskirts of Vigario Geral, we find a permanent concrete roadblock manned by taciturn young men carrying machine guns. They work for the local drug baron who runs this particular favela and are in place to deter rival drug gangs, but mainly to keep out the police. This is a no go area for them... and ordinarily, it would be for us too. But today we are quickly ferried from our minibus and through the large concrete blocks, avoiding direct eye-contact with the young soldiers, and then into another minibus which will take us into the heart of Vigario Geral. The difference between the somewhat high-spirited mood when we left our hotel in central Rio 45 minutes ago and now is tangible. What the hell have we got ourselves into?
In our flimsy cocoon we barrel through winding, narrow shack-lined streets, nervous observers of a world that suddenly has terminally sharp edges, unable to read the intent behind the impassive, but inquisitive looks coming our way.

The minibus stops sharply and we bundle out into the humid day. 100 yards ahead of us, down a lane too narrow for vehicles we see a building too large for our idea of a favela, only four storeys high, but aggressively asserting itself against the breezeblock shacks making up most of the favela. Painted matte black and green with an enormous clenched fist on top resisting the sky, it makes a solidly intimidating impression.
It is the home of Affroreggae, a non-governmental organisation set up in response to the massacre and aiming to use arts and culture as a route out of the seemingly inevitable path young people are taking into drug trafficking and violence. 

It is also the headquarters for five days of FLUPP, the brainchild of the inspirational Julio Ludemir who brokered the peace with the local drug baron allowing us to stay here in safety. Allowing Vigario Geral to become a place where for five days; residents, drug lords and boys with guns watched as children listened to stories. A place where Palestinian poets discussed politics of the Middle-East and an Afghan rap duo shook the stage, where French comic artists fascinated their initially reluctant teenage audience with hi-speed intricate drawing. A place where the local residents showed the 53 invited writers, artists, poets, and thinkers how to do the 'battle of the tiny step', a dance craze sweeping the favelas. A place where government ministers discussed literature policy and UK-based literacy advocates learnt about working on the frontline. A place where a cleaner in her fifties could stand up on stage in front of everyone and with a confident voice read the poems she thought no-one would ever hear. 
It was a place where the usual barriers and suspicions were temporarily broken down. 

This is FLUPP's second year. But what is it trying to do? Its acronymic name gives the clue to its aim. FL standing for Festival Literatura and UPP, being the already established acronym for the police-led pacification process taking place in the favelas (in the lead up to next year's football World Cup and 2016's Olympics). A process that has, so far, taken place in only 20 of the 1000 existing favelas in Rio. A process, as everyone comments; that replaces violent men holding guns with different violent men holding guns. And no one with a memory wants to see police holding guns here. 
So, FLUPP argues that alongside the militaristic state solution, you need to get to the real root of the problem and access the minds of young people before they get involved in drugs, crime and violence. One way is through literature, by bringing the pleasure of reading to a wider audience who would not normally access it, and by promoting the writing talents of those who live here also. It may sound slight... but in giving young imaginations access to a world beyond the seemingly inescapable violent bubble in which they reside, and giving them a medium of self-expression you give hope to people with none. And with that hope you can bring the seeds of a desire to change the world they live in, and the tools to move beyond it. 

On the final day I was privileged to spend three and a half intense hours in the street drawing portraits of the clamouring children of the favela (alongside Boulet... the brilliant French comic artist). All of them shouting 'me next, me next'. Drawing can be an incredible form of intimacy, and I was amazed by the spirit and nerve of these children as they all confidently held my gaze as I drew them. Ten minutes of total connection with someone from the other side, someone outside the bubble. Ten minutes of realisation that we are essentially the same, 10 minutes offering each other nothing but good will. 10 minutes where my inability to speak Portuguese and theirs to speak English was of absolutely no consequence. All this whilst next to us others queued in noisy conversation to have tramlines, geometric patterns and flowers cut into their hair by a busy team of snipping barbers; and others painted on the ground alongside us, at first containing their anarchic masterpieces to the paper provided, but quickly overwhelming such flimsy support and creating a sea of paint which became an impromptu mud pit, children skidding through it in total glee. All to occasional outbreaks of dancing and French travel writer Jean-Yves weaving through the crowds serenading everyone on his African thumb harp.
A kind of paradise, if only for an afternoon.

A kind of paradise, but a fleeting one. One where some of the keen, beautiful and fiercely bright children I met are on the cusp, on the cusp of tipping into a life where they will choose to embrace violence over anything positive. Where they will choose to involve themselves in drug trafficking for the easier money. And where some will end up dead because of those choices. And for just one of the children I met to choose that will be a tragedy, because, right now that's not what they want.

I was there also to make a film in response to one that I'd co-created with Candy Gourlay for Pop-Up Projects in London. A film made with and about the children of Nightingale Primary School in Hackney, introducing themselves to the children in Rio. Speaking about their lives in London, what they like and what they don't about where they live. What they're reading, how they engaged with the Olympics and what they'd like to do with their lives. 
After FLUPP departed I spent a day with the children at their school just outside Vigario Geral, filming with them and finally interviewing them. Trying to get an unadorned idea of what they actually felt about where they lived, good or bad. And, what might be done about any of it.
The eventual aim to create a lasting connection between the two schools, one where they can speak honestly about their lives.
And it was in these interviews that so much simple but hard hitting truth came out that it was genuinely hard to hear and not be overwhelmed by the incredible spirit and bravery of children who witness unimaginable violence throughout their lives. Children six years old who live in fear of stray bullets, who live with constant disruption, who see neighbours being set on fire, who will soon find it hard not to be sucked into that world of drugs. Children who loved FLUPP being in Vigario Geral for many reasons; because they met people they normally wouldn't and they saw a world they normally don't, and because they could dare to dream that their dreams might turn out to be more than that. And for many, it was the only week of their lives they haven't heard a single gunshot. 

Maybe that is how you start to change a seemingly inevitable course of action. You gain trust and you open minds. Maybe that is how.

2013