In 2005, Jeroen Koolhaas met Dre Urhahn to make a film on the hip hop culture of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

[16] In 2006, they started developing ideas for creating community-driven art projects in Brazil that could "transform the living environment and instill pride in the people.

Using the funds collected in the auction, they returned to Rio de Janeiro to work on another similar community driven art project.

Rob Admiraal, a Dutch tattoo artist accompanied the duo in this project and provided the design for the mural.

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program commissioned this project with the goal of revitalizing the neighborhood during a period of steady economic decline.

[24] Ultimately, the project aimed to provide visual cohesion to Germantown Avenue as well as social unity to an area with high rates of crime and unemployment.

Members of the community were recruited to work as painters, including teams of ex-prisoners, and many went on to get jobs with the Mural Arts Program.

[24] Since 2018, Favela Painting has been working to transform the exteriors of the houses surrounding the Rio Cruzeiro mosaic.

[13] Shasta Darlington with CNN wrote, "While crime hasn't abated, the project put Vila Cruzeiro on the map for something other than drug trafficking.

[37] In 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture featured artwork related to Favela Painting project.

[38] In 2011, the Herald Sun News paper of Australia called the Praça Cantão one of the most colorful places in the world.