The Graffitour of the 13: an aesthetic, political and historical trajectory through Medellín

Abstract

To think the borders of the metropolis beyond the representations associated with precariousness and crime presupposes recognizing the abundance and vitality of aesthetic practices and productions that are reconfiguring the discourses on the peripheries. In both Brazil and other Latin American countries, the emergence and diffusion of languages produced in the "margins" of cities call into question the center/periphery dualism - relativizing the existence of fixed boundaries, while proposing other ways of narrating different collective experiences. Commonly seen as a peripheral product, graffiti is an artistic language that express the multiplicity of agencies on the metropolitan edges. In the city of Medellín, Colombia, different groups formed mainly by young people from the edges have been taking on graffiti and hip hop as a resource to understand, narrate and distance themselves from the violence that crosses them. A significant sample of this type of collective experience is the Graffitour proposal, an "aesthetic, political and historical" route organized by the Centro Cultural Casa Kolacho in the Commune 13. Based on the assumption that the Graffitour transcends the simple representation of the medellinense periphery and constitutes a form of cultural and political organization to speak about the violence that appears in the city, this work reports the experience of having carried out this journey through Commune 13. In this sense, it aims to reflect on how discourses are produced on metropolitan edges in contemporary times and on the role of urban artistic manifestations in the interpretation of violence and in the construction of social memory.

A vida social da estátua de Michael Jackson na favela Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro: uma perspectiva móvel sobre regimes de valor

“…Analisar a dimensão política em relação direta às expressões estéticas socioterritoriais pode enriquecer interpretações sobre as disputas urbanas condicionadas por "regimes de valor". Para além do caso da favela carioca, a partir da Comuna 13, na cidade colombiana de Medellín, análises sobre a produção de grafites possibilitaram abordagens sobre a reprodução de fronteiras urbanas, a contestação de estigmas territorialmente circunscritos e a produção de memória coletiva local (Torres 2018). De modo análogo, em Kingston, na Jamaica, expressões estéticas como grafites, canções e produtos audiovisuais foram analiticamente entendidas como consequências de dinâmicas de ordenamento (i)legal e normativo do território (Jaffe 2012).…”