The Story Behind Brazil’s First Favela Museum—The Maré Museum—Started With a Community Network and Oral Histories in the 1990s – RioOnWatch

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This article is part of RioOnWatch‘s series on Memories of Favela Power, which documents and celebrates the history of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas through narratives and reports from residents’ collective memory, in their daily struggle to lead fulfilling lives. It also marks Brazil’s 23rd National Museum Week, celebrated from May 12-18, 2025, themed “The Future of Museums in Rapidly Changing Communities,” proposed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). We publish this piece in celebration of a groundbreaking favela memory initiative: the Maré Memory Network. This initiative culminated in the founding of Brazil’s first favela community museum, which continues influencing social museology in the city to this day: the Maré Museum.

Created in the late 1990s, the Maré Memory Network was a pioneer in preserving the history and cultural identity of Complexo da Maré, a group of 16 populous favelas in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone. It left a lasting legacy through key initiatives, such as the Dona Orosina Vieira Archive (ADOV), which to this day fosters a sense of belonging among residents with their community. The Maré Memory Network remained active until 2007, when it was absorbed by the establishment of the Maré Museum.

The start of the project, however, traces back to a previous initiative led by Maré youth in the late 1980s—more precisely, in 1989, when Maré TV was created to document the daily lives and stories of the community’s residents. At the same time, records were gathered about the region, resulting in the first collection about Maré. These included stories about the arrival of the first residents, such as Dona Orosina Vieira, and also cultural expressions, like the June Festivals, during which gay pride performances took place.

The collective was only active for a short time and disbanded in 1992. Later, there was a need for a space to offer prep courses to Maré students who wanted to attend university, which led to the creation of one of the first NGOs in Maré: the Center for Studies and Solidarity Actions of Maré (CEASM), in 1997. This initiative was also led by residents, including those who had been part of Maré TV.

Within CEASM, other projects were launched to address a wide variety of issues, organized as networks: the Maré Work and Education Network (RETEM), the Health Network, and the Memory Network, specifically aimed at the community’s historic preservation. The material produced by Maré TV was donated to the Maré Memory Network and unfolded into various other initiatives.

According to Cláudia Rose Ribeiro, CEASM and Maré Museum cofounder, the organization was initially created to prepare residents for the Brazilian college entrance examination, the vestibular, but eventually expanded its activities to other areas. Its collection, already under the care of the Memory Network, became a strategy for strengthening students’ identity and sense of belonging, aiming to draw them closer to their community.

“[The Maré Memory Network] was a way of encouraging our youth not to deny their roots. University wasn’t made for favela residents, so using the project’s collection was a [strategic] way for them to survive in that space. We proposed working with memory as a tool for connecting to the favela, because we believed that by knowing our past struggles, they would feel that they belonged.” — Cláudia Rose Ribeiro

According to a study by Thamires Ribeiro de Oliveira, a master’s student in Preservation and Cultural Heritage Management of Science and Health at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the main aim of the Maré Memory Network was to “record, preserve, and disseminate the history of the communities that make up the neighborhood and, through this, to strengthen the sense of local belonging among Maré residents, through their history and culture.”

Among the main activities carried out by the Maré Memory Network were interviews with residents and the search for materials about the community in the city of Rio de Janeiro’s archives. Testimonials from older residents were fundamental in supporting research conducted in these archives. The network was also responsible for other important projects that followed, such as the creation of the Maré de Histórias storytelling group, the institution’s publications—like the book Maré Tales and Legends—and the establishment of the Dona Orosina Vieira Archive (ADOV), as well as the Maré Museum itself.

The search for materials, mainly iconographic, across archives such as libraries and museums in the city of Rio de Janeiro was led by Antônio Carlos Vieira, another cofounder of the Maré Museum.

“I helped organize this material. We tried to give the Maré Memory Network a real archival feel. We submitted project proposals to several public institutions to see if we could get funding to organize this material and also to publish books. There are two books that really focused on memory: Carioca Waters, which I put together after discovering some amazing material during research at the National Library, and which [consisted of] articles that ran in the Correio da Manhã newspaper about Guanabara Bay. The other book was Maré in 12 Eras, which looks at Maré through the eras presented in the Museum, which I also helped establish and continue to support through research.” — Antônio Carlos Vieira

Public school art teacher Marcelo Vieira was one of the Maré TV participants responsible for safeguarding and curating the Maré collection until CEASM was created in 1997. He was one of the “prospectors” who gathered this material, which later became part of the Maré Museum’s collection.

“We had a camera that came from a partnership with an organization linked to the Catholic Church. Through this project, we had camera and script workshops. We filmed things throughout the favela—Folia de Reis [a Catholic celebration where groups go door to door between Christmas and Epiphany, blessing homes in exchange for food or money as they reenact the journey of the Three Wise Men], cultural events, you know? The daily lives of residents. We produced a few videos, documentaries, all on VHS tapes. It was all very simple.

For these interviews, we were basically a group walking around the favela, looking for ideas… During one of our chats, we came up with the idea to interview the oldest residents. And we’d listen to these stories with the camera in hand. We’d think, ‘Let’s interview those long-time residents,’ and go out looking for them—people we’d been hearing about since we were kids. ‘Oh, she was the first resident!’ ‘He’s been here forever!’ ‘Since the fishing village days…’ In these interviews, they’d talk about how and when they got here, where they came from, their roots. They’d describe what the area used to be like, because it was a whole different place from what it is today. They started sharing stories and giving accounts of things I didn’t quite understand at the time. It was because of those interviews—and my curiosity about all that newness—that I said to the group, ‘Let’s dig into the Rio de Janeiro archives.’ So, in the late 1980s, early 1990s, we started looking for information about what those older residents were talking about. ‘Oh, Inhaúma used to have a beach…’ They’d give us clues, and through the research we did in the archives, those oral histories became real—photos, [articles, and documents] about Maré in the early 20th century.

Now, imagine being in your twenties and suddenly coming across a visual archive left by the photographer hired by City Hall to walk around Rio de Janeiro and document the city’s urban renewal period [in the early 20th century] and seeing what that region and the city’s peripheries looked like back then… it was a huge surprise!” — Marcelo Vieira

The first major search phase was carried out by Maré TV and later continued by the Maré Memory Network. The iconographic material became the largest collection within the set gathered by the network, and also the most researched and featured in its activities, including exhibitions.

The photographs were mainly found in public collections and institutions, as well as in the hands of researchers from outside the community.

Among these institutions are the General Archive of the City of Rio de Janeiro (AGCRJ), through the Augusto Malta Collection; the National Archives, in the Correio da Manhã Collection; Casa de Oswaldo Cruz; the Caixa Econômica Federal archive; and photographs by Anthony Leeds, an anthropologist who studied Maré in the 1960s, and João Mendes, photographer for Project Rio. Some photos that were deteriorating at the Timbau Residents’ Association were collected by Antônio Carlos Vieira, better known as Carlinhos, during his time as president of the association.

This search intensified with the creation of the Maré Memory Network. According to researcher Thamires Ribeiro de Oliveira:

“In mid-2002, the Maré Memory Network coordination team, through its research and collection acquisition group, launched a search through archives, museums, and libraries to carry out an iconographic survey of the Maré region and its surroundings—areas whose forced evictions had triggered migration into Maré. Bibliographies and manuscripts were left for a later phase of research. This initial analysis was largely completed by the end of the year. Audiovisual records and maps were also gathered, though they were limited in number compared to the photographic records.”

One outcome of this research was the publication of the illustrated book History of Maré by Antônio Carlos Vieira, which recounts historical events in the Maré region from the colonial period through the late 1990s. It is the first version of the book History of Complexo da Maré.

The work became part of the body of documents assembled by the Maré Memory Network, which brought together various materials about the region and included, for example, the story of Orosina Vieira—a Black woman and migrant from Minas Gerais, considered the first resident of Maré. The collection was named in her honor: the Dona Orosina Vieira Archive (ADOV), inaugurated on April 26, 2002.

As part of its interview initiatives, the Maré Memory Network partnered with Brazil’s national health foundation, Fiocruz, to develop a methodology for recording the oral histories of residents. These testimonials, previously recorded with long-time residents, inspired the creation of the Maré de Histórias storytelling group and the book Maré Tales and Legends, published in 2003 by Maré das Letras, the publishing center of the Maré Work and Education Network (RETEM).

For Marilene Nunes, also a cofounder of the Maré Museum and coordinator of the Maré de Histórias group, the Elias José Library, and the Marielle Franco Toy Library, one of her most memorable experiences with the group was:

“During this journey through Maré with the Maré de Histórias group, I remember an activity we did under the bridge at the former McLaren Occupation, with the residents there. It was a day of storytelling, with a reading circle. What struck me most was the participation not just of the children, but also of some of their guardians. At the end, we shared a snack—we had chosen a house the day before and left the sodas there. The result: some of the children from that unhealthy place, who lived in wooden shacks, became readers at the Elias José Library. Being part of this project was, and still is, a very rich moment in my life. Through these activities, I was able to share a bit of knowledge and a sense of belonging with the listeners, because I’ve always spoken of Maré as a place of struggle, resistance, and belonging.”

RETEM supported the promotion of communication-oriented courses, including workshops in photography, video, literary production, graphic design, and a training course for guides at Fiocruz’s Museum of Life, between 1999 and 2000. The training received financial support from the Solidarity Community Program, launched under the administration of then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and from the Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ).

In the early 2000s, Fiocruz promoted a series of activities aimed at discussing cultural appropriation. This initiative led to a partnership with the Maré Memory Network and the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UniRio), where a variety of museological activities took place. Among them was the exhibition The Strength of Maré’s Tides: from Stilt Houses to the Palace, shown at the Museum of the Republic, the Castelinho do Flamengo, and the Cultural Center of the State Court of Auditors in 2004. The exhibition further encouraged the idea of building a museum in Maré.

In 2005, construction began with federal funding from the Living Culture Program–Cultural Points, and technical support from the Museums Department of Brazil’s National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN). The museum was inaugurated on May 8, 2006, in the presence of then-Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil.

The museum was planned as a space for preserving Maré’s memory and fostering a sense of belonging among its people—a place where residents could contribute by donating objects and other materials to help tell the community’s story.

A few months after the inauguration of the Maré Museum, in 2007, the Maré Memory Network concluded its activities. All of its commitments, collections, and initiatives were absorbed by the museum. Its legacy, however, still resonates.

The Dona Orosina Vieira Archive is gradually being transformed into a digital collection, which is already publicly accessible. It includes maps, videos, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other textual documents, as well as items donated by residents—such as household items, work tools, religious ornaments, and toys. The goal is to migrate the entire collection of over 4,000 museological items into digital format.

“All the material on the memory of Maré will be made available to researchers, residents, and anyone interested in this history. Around 25% of the museum’s [physical] collection is already online. To make this happen, we are producing research that will lead to publications on memory. So we’re working on several fronts to turn that research into new materials. I believe the publications, in particular, can have a really meaningful impact on the community. And of course, all of this material will have a digital version. We also want to strengthen the museum’s social media presence by creating spaces for memory and recollection there.” — Antônio Carlos Vieira

About the author: Amanda Baroni Lopes is a journalism student at Unicarioca and was part of the first Journalism Laboratory organized by Maré’s community newspaper Maré de Notícias. She is the author of the Anti-Harassment Guide on Breaking, a handbook that explains what is and isn’t harassment to the Hip Hop audience and provides guidance on what to do in these situations. Lopes is from Morro do Timbau and currently lives in Vila do João, both favelas within the larger Maré favela complex.

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