Brazil is undergoing an enormous transformation these days. For the last 10 years it has had an annual growth in GDP of 4 pct. Traveling through the country you see with your own eyes how the country is rising from poverty and transforming into a very modern country. Forget the times with government corruption and destitution. This rich country is getting stronger and wealthier every day.

Webcitizen, a new Brazilian company, aims to create citizen awareness and involvement in government projects, using Web 2.0 technologies.

Web 2.0 refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, user-centered design and collaboration on the Web. Examples include social-networking sites, wikis, blogs etc.

We were commissioned to travel for 30 days through the state of Minas Gerais to document all the new developments within schools, hospitals, infrastructure, constructions. We drove 6000 km and visited 22 cities.

We met and photographed the citizens of Minas Gerais whose lives is undergoing a huge transformation.

We saw with our own eyes that the Government had indeed kept its promise, exceeded it in some facets, and we visually captured this panorama for a larger audience successfully.

Click here to see all the images from Minas Gerais

We’ve completed the work for Nike and the result is a 400-page book on football culture in Latin America.

At BOLA Sociology Design, we’re planning to publish a printed magazine every half year. Over the past 5 months, I’ve been working on and off on the first issue which will uncover the street-basket culture in Brazil. The Street-basket culture is a interesting cultural manifestation started in North American suburbs among black youngsters. In the beginning it was as a kind of resistance and exaltation of their black inheritance. In Brazil, where Streetball is closely related to the Hip Hop movement, the search for the African background restores, in many ways, the self confidence in young suburban kids. It gives them a social role in which they feel integrated to a much broader community. Trying to understand such culture is a way to investigate how the black culture, which is so important to the Brazilian formation, manifests itself and interacts with other social manifestations in the country. Working with an anthologist, a journalist and a graphic designer, the first issue will be out Q1 2008.