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I’ve been noticing some really interesting street art coming out of one of the BRIC countries recently: Brazil. Brazil’s rising creative and cultural strength and identity is resulting in some exceptional artwork and graffiti.

One of the things I learned at the recent PSFK Conference NYC from the Wooster Collective is that every piece of art has a story, so even thought the following pieces are upfront visually engaging, there’s deeper reasons and meanings behind their creation.

Here’s a brief collection of Brazilian street art I’ve found over the past several months:

via PicoCool (see more pics at sola e a comedia da vida seca )

PSFK also had a recent post on Pixação graffiti in Brazil:

“The angular style that seems to cover the city of Sao Paulo was first used in the early 80s and was inspired by heavy metal typography which in turn was inspired by viking type-style.”

The Big Picture is a photo blog that also has some great pics of the favelas in Brazil that are covered with giant pics of women that have suffered from among others things, drug trafficking and violence. This art display was created by a photographer named JR who has also recently launched his “Women Are Heroes” campaign.

The Big Picture: Scenes from Rio Janeiro

I also learned of  some colorful street art by Titi Freak, a Brazilian artist with Japanese ancestry that I really like. Check out these lovely Koi fish:

As Planners, if we’re really going to “think outside the box,” we need to think outside the lines of geography and physical limitations. There’s interesting changes going on outside our own borders and the unique urban artistry that’s evolved from societal, political and economic events should be recognized and understood. Sometimes thinking outside the box means going outside our normal boundaries and figuring out how we can find ideas and inspiration in other sources, and making them relevant to what’s in front of us.