Comrades from the Kasa Invisível squat in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, are now touring all around Europe to present the book Casa Encantada, the Enchanted House, “A Portrait of the Fight for Housing in Belo Horizonte Going Through the Pandemic”. The book brings together illustrations by Renato Baruq and photographs by Cadu Passos. During 2022 and 2023, two Brazilian artists and organizers documents 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 by 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. During the pandemic, we saw an explosion in homelessness in Brazil’s urban centers, which led to the emergence of a new wave of occupations of houses and smaller buildings.
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.
During the discussions, the people of the Kasa Invisível squat will look at the contexts of the squatting movement and the struggle for land and living spaces in Belo Horizonte. The city is home to at least 100,000 people living in squatted buildings, houses or territories and is home to one of the largest land conflicts in Latin America. The discussions aim to foster international ties and solidarity.
To support printing and translation costs: https://www.firefund.net/casaencantada
The money will also cover the costs of printing future editions of the book for public libraries and social centers in Brazil. The book will be available at the infoshop and on the Kasa Invisível website as a free download.
Kasa Invisível https://kasainvisivel.org/
https://radar.squat.net/en/belo-horizonte/casa-invisivel
Casa Encantada book tour
https://radar.squat.net/en/casa-encantada-book-tour
30/03 – Sat – Disgraça, Lisbon, PT
01/04 – Mon – ESLA Eko, Madrid, ES
02/04 – Tue – Errekaleor, Vitoria, EH
04/04 – Thu – CSO Kike Mur, Zaragoza, ES
05/04 – Fri – Can Vies, Barcelona, ES
06/04 – Sat – Ateneu Llibertari de Gràcia, Barcelona, ES
09/04 – Tue – Le Local Autogéré, Grenoble, FR
10/04 – Wed – Quartier Libre des Lentillères, Dijon, FR
13/04 – Sat – La Trotteuse, Pantin/Paris, FR
15/04 – Mon – Hamburg, DE
17/04 – Wed – KØPI, Berlin, DE
18/04 – Thu – Fischladen, Berlin, DE
21/04 – Sun – EKH, Vienna, AT
22/04 – Tue – Prague, CZ
26/04 – Fri – A-Infoshop, Ljubljana, SLO
27/04 – Sat – Belgrade, RS
02/05 – Thu – Athens, GR
06/05 – Mon – Thessaloniki, GR
07/05 – Tue – Bitola, NMK
08/05 – Wed – Skopje, NMK
10/05 – Fri – Dortmund, GER
11/05 – Sat – Joe’s Garage, Amsterdam, NL
