{all images courtesy of photographers listed here}

Apart 69 was one of the first places i ever stayed in rio back in 2005. i had taken a trip to Rio de Janeiro, funded by a graduation fellowship award. i took the journey to help other creative friends film their movie – Carnaval Blues, written and directed by Miguel Silveira. funny thing is, i had not taken my new digital slr on this trip, being told it would be safer for me to keep it at home. luckly, the cinematographer Gzegorz had brought his camera along with a bag full of film – he graciously let me use it. from there i became the sill photographer for the production!

this morning i had the pleasure of talking to the writer & director's father, Itibere, who splits his time living in Michigan, USA & Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. He is the entrepreneur & persistent voice behind the renovation of Apart 69 & Baixo Santa do Alto Gloria (translated roughly to the "bottom of Santa and top of Gloria" – it sits at the merge of two places in Rio : Santa Teresa & Gloria) two properties in Rio that would have fallen into such disrepair from neglect & vandalism if it wasn't for him. It's this type of forward thinking and resourcefulness that is exciting to witness. When I stayed there & helped back in 2005 they were still removing debris & only a few of the houses at Apart 69 were livable at the time. It was such a privilege and experience – carrying all that equipment up all those stairs and showering on the top roof of the pink house, among the late night discussions and enjoyment of people from all over. I am aware today, that this is very much apart of my journey of discovery to Our World Insideout.

… this is what i adore about our experiences, and the people we meet anywhere helping us to grow, showing that we are all very connected …

Here is the amazing history and evolution of one man's home (now Apart 69) and dream that has been restored & brought back to life by Itibere. from his own words – a full circle:

"The houses also follow an european model where the owner would build his own house and then start building other small units so as to earn some money from the rent from these houses, pretty much what I am doing today in fact, served me well. It was built in 1934 by a Spaniard and pretty much followed Gaudi style with lots of curves like the Guel Park. It was a luxurious house and then he started to build the houses upstairs even though he was a well to do man. Eventually he became stuck to a wheelchair and could not go up and down the stairs again and had to move out, that's when things went really bad and he started to accept just about anybody living up there. Eventually the water pump which used to pump water up from the well (that house actually has a natural spring water flow at the bottom, it's really cool) and the Spaniard's daughter (the guy had died already) refused to pay to fix it, so everyone stopped paying the rents. After a long judicial battle everyone had to move out under eviction with all the spicy police squads forcing everyone out. She then locked the place up but drug lords broke into it and took over so as to use it for their drug activities and slept there also. This went on for quite a few years until I bought it and hired 22 strong men to move in and force everyone out, I guess I was lucky and there was no confrontation (my 22 guys were quite strong) and they actually worked very hard to clean the place out of all the debris, the tunnel was filled up to the brim with debris to give you an idea of how much dirt and filth we had to take out of there."

an idea of what it looked like when Itibere took it over:

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