A favela is the term used to describe a Brazilian shanty town. Most of Rio’s favelas date to the 1940s when the country’s industrialization drew thousands of migrants into the city. They mushroomed in the 1970s, when the flooding of Rio’s low-lying slums drove residents into the makeshift towns on the city’s hills. Today, twenty per cent of Rio’s population lives in favelas. Most of them live in poverty, their lives ruled by drug lords. Garbage is seldom collected – much of it is left piled on the streets. The lone figure in this image is dwarfed by the trash piled below graffiti covered barriers. The image implies a number of human values: endurance, acceptance, and impoverishment all come to mind.