newyorker:

The images of eyes, unblinking and the size of buildings, stared down from the slum on a hill – Rio de Janeiro’s oldest favela, Morro da Providência – and into the heart of the city. They emerged mysteriously, in the summer of 2008, not long after three young men from the community were murdered. The Brazilian Army and a powerful narco-mafia were implicated, and, when the news broke, residents of the favela rioted. For years, they had been living in near total social isolation; taxis did not go up the hill, nor did ambulances, not even the police. Half a dozen buses were destroyed during the riots, but afterward an uneasy calm took hold, and that is when the eyes began to appear.

Raffi Khatchadourian writes about the street artist JR and his global experiment to help people be seen [subscription required]. Above, a photograph by JR from the series “Women Are Heroes.”