I've always seen the streets as the primary art gallery,
the primary museum.
There is no more important place for the artist to expose,
than the streets.
The streets gave me everything I know, lived,
and experienced.
All difficulties of coming from the suburbs.
Aside from not having any support,
I also suffered the violence of the streets.
I'm self-taught,
I learned it all on the streets.
But my first contact was through "pixação".
I'd spray my name on the city's walls,
on buildings and so on in São Paulo.
Only after a while, I started to do graffiti.
It always felt hard for me not having a piece in Rio.
I saw foreign artists coming to Rio
and I'd travel abroad, see many places,
and not having my work here was a feeling of emptiness.
And I wasn't expecting it, but when I saw the wall,
then it really hit me.
A 10.000 square feet wall.
I was stunned!
The wall was only plastered.
And I knew I had to do it!
I ended mobilizing a big team,
people that are already my friends,
people who already work with me,
so that we could do this work,
which also ends up being an Olympic record!
At least for me,
because it's the biggest mural we've ever painted,
with these dimensions.
My name is Kléber Pagu,
and I work with Kobra in the infrastructure area.
Preparing the base is very important,
because after painting the whole wall white,
we painted it for 10 days,
we used 50 cans of 4,5 galons to paint his wall,
we started squaring the wall,
it's a standard process in Kobra's painting.
He has an amazing image database in his head.
If you tell him a story, like an image search engine
he will find an image for that story.
I developed that design for one or two months.
I made over 30 different drawings for this wall.
I invited Kobra,
whose work I've been following for many years,
because I knew he'd translate what I was thinking.
I wanted him to make a drawing,
to create something Olympic, obviously,
that would address the Olympics, but that would be timeless.
My idea for this mural
was showing the origins of all people.
We symbolized each continent
through their native people,
their original people.
His work is millimetric,
looks like a chessboard,
or naval battle, drawing numbered squares.
And then you see
the eye is in square 12-42,
so you recreate the eye in that square.
It seems easy in theory, but when you start,
you can only see smudges.
In the Olympiad history,
it's the largest manual intervention.
It's 10.000 feet,
each inch painted by hand.
All who are involved with me,
have more interesting histories than my own.
They, just like myself,
didn't have many opportunities
and had to work in other areas.
Motoboy, office-boy, pizza delivery.
They are not my helpers, they are artists,
who are dedicating their time to work with me.
I think people are starting to acknowledge
the importance of the transformation
of urban areas through art.
Here we had an inhospitable area,
and because of the renovation
that was done by the Rio's government,
this area became alive.
This is the Olympic Boulevard,
this is the government's revitalized area,
named Marvelous Port.
The government had an excellent idea
to remove a giant viaduct that used to be here,
enlightening this area of the city
that was never visited.
The first step is getting to know the place,
the history, the proposed project,
to see the wall.
There is a whole port history around it.
And from the right to the left
is where the slave ships used to berth.
These surroundings have a very powerful history.
It was interesting,
because, during the street's excavation,
they found the Royal Port, the Royal Disembark.
It is thrilling because each stone you see,
each piece of wood, has been here for many years
and so many enslaved people walked here for so long...
The slavery culture still exists here.
It's very important to show this reality,
to not be afraid of showing this reality.
I already had an idea about this subject.
I had already created peace related murals.
It's a subject I develop. I did it in Europe, in the US...
And this mural follows the same idea,
which is to symbolize the union between people,
especially at this moment in time,
where we live so much discrimination and violence.
So my intent with this mural
was to search the origins of people
showing that we all are one
and that we are interconnected, interdependent,
each one depends onthe other.
My idea with this wall is to show this a little bit.
The name of the wall is Ethnics.
And we hope that those who come to Rio's Olympics
feel represented here, in this mural.
-Are you Kobra? -Yes.
-Can I take a picture? -Sure.
With the mural behind.
-It's fantastic! -Cool, thanks.
It's always a surprise.
I've been painting on the streets for many years
and I've experienced everything on the streets.
I started illegally, I've been arrested doing it
and today I'm able to occupy relevant and important places
all over the world, in Rio de Janeiro,
and still have the people's support.
And because it's the Olympics, everyone is connected,
everyone ends up watching the games.
There's no way around it, it's inside us.
It's an important moment for the world's street art,
for the Brazilian street artists
who are also showing their work to the world.
I think it's great to be part of this moment in history.