Casa encantada: A Portrait of the Fight for Housing in Belo Horizonte (e-book)
“Casa encantada: A Portrait of the Fight for Housing in Belo Horizonte” is a book that brings together illustrations by Renato Baruq and photographs by Cadu Passos, both from the Kasa Invisível squat in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. During 2022 and 2023, the two Brazilian artists and organizers documented almost 20 old abandoned houses in the central region of Belo Horizonte that became living social and cultural spaces for people in vulnerable situations during the pandemic. The work is accompanied byrightrsoci interviews conducted between 2022 and 2023, which tell the story of these properties and their inhabitants in their own voices.
Kasa Invisível is a house squatted by an autonomous and horizontal anticapitalist collective, since 22 march 2013, located in the downtown of Belo Horizonte. For a decade, people from all around the world have been visiting Kasa Invisível for discussions, workshops, movie screenings, concerts, classes, book fairs, and festivals. In addition to hosting events and meetings for unions and social movement groups, Kasa functions daily as a community kitchen, library, infoshop, screen printing workshop, and vegan food cooperative. During the pandemic and the period of social isolation, the Kasa collective started to organize regular actions to support homeless people and workers in the neighborhood against COVID-19. This involved gathering and donating food, clothing, blankets and hygiene kits alongside other forms of direct action and mutual support.
The book Casa Encantada documents abandoned houses in Belo Horizonte that have been squatted and transformed into homes and social centers. In Belo Horizonte there are currently at least 100,000 people living in squats, houses or territories. This is where one of the largest land conflicts in Latin America is taking place.
The book documents this network of autonomous squats with illustrations by Baruq, phographs from C. Passos, and interviews with residents and activists in the squatting movement in Belo Horizonte.
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