Drawing Project Bart Lodewijks in Rio de Janeiro

During this work period in Rio de Janeiro I go into the city every day, looking for walls, houses, interiors, street surfaces that I find fitting for my drawings with blackboard chalk. The drawings are meant as sketches, left behind on the location where they came into existence – instead of taken away in a sketchbook. Often, a drawing is not fully visible, for example because it turns a corner, because it continues a number of streets further on, shifting to the facades and interiors of private homes, or has been washed away by rain. Chalk is an innocent material, thus the drawings form no threat: they can permeate easier into a social context than a permanent material.

Apart from photographing/documenting the drawings, I write letters and short texts about what happens on the locations where I work. The letters give report and are addressed to people who become relevant when you start drawing ‘just like that’ on a certain location.

With the transience of my drawing in public space and the more permanent power of the word, I want to allow for connections between people and places you cannot think of beforehand.
What could remain of my project in Rio could for example be a proposal for permanent chalk drawings.