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When eleven footballers hum their national anthem it sounds perfect. When millions in stadiums become poets, they do it for their favourite team. An exhibition in Germany and South America is also demonstrating that football and culture belong together.

The fire is burning in Brazil. The whole country is getting ready for the 2014 Football World Cup: the boteco owners on the Copacabana, young players on the football grounds and eleven artists from Africa, South America and Europe. Since May they have been touring through 19 cities in South America and Germany with an art exhibition on the 2014 Football World Cup. The exhibition takes the sport back where it came from – to culture. In videos, photographs and sound art, football becomes the epitome of community spirit in music, dance or just a certain lifestyle.

Photo gallery: Artists on the ball

The Basle artists Mauricio Dias and Walter Stephan Riedweg document everyday life in a Rio favela, where teens meet on a fenced football ground at night. In his photographs, the Uruguay-Argentinian Banda Bajofondo unites football with Argentina’s other favourite pastime, the tango. The pictures in the exhibition illuminate the sport with all its emotions and rituals and what culture has lent to it.

New beginnings are also a part of it. Under the Taliban it was unthinkable for women to play football but times have changed and with them Afghan society. The Afghan women’s national football team was formed eight years ago. They train with enthusiasm and courage – under soldiers’ protection – on a military base. Lela Ahmadzai, a photojournalist from Berlin, created both a photo series and film documentary about the female players.



Although the Brazilian national team was weak in the preliminary to the World Cup, the fans of the beloved Seleção will get them back on their feet. Whether with sambas, Brazilian songs like the popular choro 1 x 0 or with whistles, it is definitely with Brazilian fervour.

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