Richard J. Williams

Ouvidor 63 is an illegal but tolerated artist-led occupation of an office block in downtown São Paulo. There are perhaps two hundred artists living and working in the ‘largest artist-led occupation in Latin America’. Occupations have become rarer in the UK, especially since 2012 when legislation in England and Wales made squatting a criminal offence punishable by six months’ imprisonment. But for many people of my generation, squatting was formative. My social life as an art student in 1980s London centred on gigs in abandoned cinemas and police stations. The culture is alive and well in Brazil, though, and in São Paulo in particular.