The city of Rio de Janeiro is located in the Brazilian state of the same name.
The city’s working classes have built their own neighborhoods over the past several generations.
These impoverished favelas are home to around 1.5 million people—nearly a quarter of the city’s population.
Maré is one of Rio’s largest favela “complexes,” vast districts of favela neighborhoods.
Walk into its teeming, narrow streets on an average day and you are assaulted by the pungent smell of raw sewage and a wave of sound—thumping funk music, revving motorcycles, the din of chattering voices.
Tangles of pirated electricity wires hang overhead. Originally informal settlements, the favelas are now official city neighborhoods, but they’re marked by inadequate public services and heavy gang and police violence.