ABSTRACT
A former student of Cláudio's sent a video about a visual experiment on street children done in Brazil. The video, directed by Paulo Gandra (2008), goes more or less like this: Streets of downtown São Paulo, February 28, 2008. Hidden cameras. A 5-year-old boy, Matheus Braga, acting as two different children, is shown on a split screen wearing different clothes and levels of personal grooming. On the left screen, the viewer sees Matheus dressed in dirty shorts and tank-top, his face dirty, hair disheveled, shoeless. On the right-hand screen, the viewer sees Matheus sitting exactly on the same spot on a sidewalk in downtown São Paulo, but this time he is looking clean, his hair is combed, he is wearing shoes, and his clothes are well kept. Matheus has the same expression in both situations, his face is serious, and his eyes are looking around as throngs of adults walk by in both directions. Within a few seconds, you can see adults stopping next to Matheus on the right side of the screen. A woman bends down to Matheus's head level and starts talking to him. Soon, there are a dozen adults around Matheus, on the right screen, all with clear expressions of concern, pointing and talking to one another. Then, on the left side of the screen, you see Matheus still sitting alone as people walk by. No one stops. No one seems to look at Matheus in ragged clothes and dirty face. The video ends with the question: "Why are some children our problem and some aren't?".
