Ô Culpa

Ô Culpa is a long-term photographic project that began in 2019 inside a housing occupation under an overpass in the Bom Retiro neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil. Around thirty-five families, many of whom had lost their homes or never had access to one, transformed that abandoned space into a place of life, conviviality, and community.

The work does not dwell on scarcity or precarity, but instead on the vitality and imagination that emerged in those conditions. Through colors, gestures, and the intimacy of domestic spaces, the photographs reveal how people resist the weight of stereotypes, affirming dignity and belonging in the most unlikely of places.

The project was developed in dialogue with the residents, whose stories and voices are interwoven with the images. The title, Ô Culpa, plays with the sound proximity between “culpa” (guilt) and “ocupa” (occupation), evoking the ambiguity that surrounds the right to housing and the struggles of those forced to occupy.

On March 17, 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, the occupation was dismantled by a police eviction order. To avoid confrontation, the families had already left, but what followed was the demolition of what had been their only shelter. The scenes of destruction marked an abrupt end to a fragile yet vibrant collective life. The project, however, did not stop there: it continues to follow the people who lived in that space as they move toward a dignifying home.

What remains in this work is not only the memory of displacement, but also a testimony of resilience: how, even in the face of loss, communities continue to reinvent themselves. Ô Culpa offers a counter-narrative to the way occupations are often portrayed, emphasizing instead the collaborative beauty of people who create new forms of home, together.