Alternautas

Book Review

Helton Levy — 2023-12-21

In The Urban Enigma: Time, Autonomy, and Postcolonial Transformation in Latin America, Simone Vegliò discusses some dilemmas in forming a post-colonial Latin American urban space based on three major architectural projects in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Brasília. The book discusses the projects’ ambitions in line with the vision of modernity at their time while contrasting their aims with the demands of social inclusion, justice, and the continuation of colonial ideas.

Introduction Streets of Latin America

Helton Levy — 2023-12-21

This article introduces the Streets of Latin America: New Battlegrounds of Change special edition.

Bocanada (Graciela Sacco, 1993-2023): Thirty Years of ‘Interferences’

Clara Garavelli — 2023-12-21

The year 2023 marks the 30^th anniversary of the first street intervention in which the Argentine artist Graciela Sacco used her iconic Bocanada images to signal a state of emergency and challenge the power dynamics at play in the urban space. This first Bocanada ‘interference’ – as the artist used to describe her practice – took place in the Argentine city of Rosario in 1993, when Sacco pasted heliographic posters of her close-ups of wide-open mouths on the exterior walls of a kitchen that prepared meals for the city’s public schools but was under threat of closure. The title of the work has been variously translated into English as ‘mouthful’ and as ‘a breath’; both versions aiming to encapsulate the many meanings of the Spanish noun Bocanada. More literal translations would read the term as a compound noun: a ‘mouth-nothing’; thereby revealing Sacco’s reference, via her somewhat dystopian image, to the neoliberal experiment that submerged Argentina in unemployment and poverty, and precipitated the socio-political, economic and food crisis with which the country began the twenty-first century. This article will explore Sacco’s ‘interferences’, their passage from the streets of various cities around the world to different gallery spaces and museums, and their renewed vitality, thirty years on – and more than five years after the artist’s premature passing.

Feminist Urbanism

Eva Youkhana — 2023-12-21

Buenos Aires is globally appealing for its diverse culture, history, and opportunities. It lures people for employment, education, and healthcare, adding to urbanization tensions. The city administration advertises integrative urbanism to improve attractiveness but struggles with high crime rates, particularly compared to some European cities.

This study focuses on safety through a feminist urbanism lens. We question the effectiveness of safety measures and who benefits from them. Key considerations include how various demographics, from the elderly to security forces, perceive safety and city renovations.

We adopt a feminist perspective, referencing seminal works like Leslie Kern's 'Feminist City' (2021) and Argentine activist Ana Falú (2022). Utilizing participatory mapping tools designed in Latin America, our study aims to decolonize traditional knowledge production methods.

Beyond the public space tableau: Insurgent heritage and the right to the city in Bogotá

Erich Hellmer — 2023-12-21

This paper explores how the right to the city is understood and practiced in relation to public space by contrasting two models of urban planning in Bogotá, Colombia. It contrasts a best practice right to the city/public space model with an alternative vision for urban ordering based on participatory forms of living heritage. I argue that this represents a kind of insurgent heritage that offers a potentially rich and powerful concept for extending the right to the city to further push for including alternative worldviews and practices in planning and policymaking. To develop this argument, I discuss theories related to public space, the right to the city, and critical heritage. I then use these to discuss an ethnographic study of heritage planning in the Traditional Center of Bogotá.

The Renaming of Those Hidden by the State: Mexico City’s La Glorieta de las Mujeres que Luchan

Natalia Stengel — 2023-12-21

This article examines the anti-monument La glorieta de las mujeres que luchan, designed and stealthily placed by the Mexican collectives Antimonumenta and the Frente Amplio de Mujeres que Luchan to recognise the socio-political relevance of the feminist activists, commemorate and name victims of feminicide, decolonise the city and question the patriarchal official historical narrative. The wooden statue of a girl and the renaming of the site took place on 25 September 2021, after Mexico City’s government removed the statue of Christopher Columbus (to protect it from activists) and proposed to replace it with a monument that reproduced colonialist and patriarchal political mechanisms. I argue that La glorieta de las mujeres que luchan is a useful tool to remember the feminist protest and a memorial for victims of feminicide; meanwhile, it confronts the patriarchal historic narrative. Since the statue resulted from consent amongst feminist groups, it successfully represents the majority of women engaging in different movements against gender-based violence. The statue is located in Paseo de la Reforma, the most important avenue in Mexico City, where only two of the monuments represent female figures (both mythological characters) surrounded by several representations of male heroes. Drawing on Suzanne Lacy’s concept of “new genre public art” (Lacy, 1995) –popularised in Mexico by feminist artist Mónica Mayer– and Julia Antivilo’s (Antivilo Peña, 2008) (‘Ponencia Arte Feminista-Julia Antivilo’, 2020) analysis of feminist activism, I argue that the anti-monument is a constant reminder of feminist’s demands and stands as a perpetual activist act.

The “Retablos” wait for your demands!

Eliana Otta — 2023-12-21

Since Dina Boluarte took Peru’s presidency, the Police repression and military violence caused more than 60 deaths. Massive mobilizations reject her, promoting journeys from the Andes to Lima. These urgent claims are echoed by civil groups, among which “Retablos por la Memoria” stands out, appropriating a rural traditional artistic expression to denounce and mourn the assassinated. Initiated by feminist artists, they have spread in Peruvian cities and abroad, creating bridges in a fragmented and depoliticized society. In a country still affected by the internal armed conflict (80s-2000s) and harshly beaten by Covid-19, “Retablos por la Memoria” contests impunity while demanding radical change: a regenerative form of artivism in an extremely violent battleground.

The Dissolution of the Cognitive Empire

Alessandra Simões Paiva — 2023-12-21

This article discusses the urban art actions implemented during the pandemic in Brazil and their relationship with the decolonial turn in the arts. By examining examples such as the project Voices Against Racism and the CURA (Urban Art Circuit), which carried out numerous artistic-urban interventions in Brazilian cities involving Afro-descendant and Indigenous curators and artists, we propose a reflection on how urban spaces can enhance the city as a site of visibility and affirmation for marginalised groups and the political struggle in Latin American countries. With the closure of museums and other cultural institutions during the pandemic, cities became the epicentre of artistic and political expression. This coincided with the emergence of the decolonial movement in Brazilian arts and the social movements that fought against the obscurantist regime of the extreme-right government led by former President Jair Bolsonaro. While urban art has been traditionally analysed from the perspectives of art theories and cultural studies (e.g., through discussions on the divisions between the cult, the popular, and the mass), we argue that contemporary analyses require new parameters for an effective approach to this phenomenon, bringing together Latin-American studies and decolonial perspectives. Therefore, this study's primary objective is to significantly contribute to urban art studies by comprehensively understanding the city and its spaces of collectivisation as inherently transformative agents for fostering social change through artistic endeavours.