The Public Tap: Water, Space and Politics in Twentieth-Century Buenos Aires Shantytowns.

ADRIANA LAURA MASSIDDA

Londres

Mesa redonda; Curating / Community / Public Space - Roundtable at Kingston School of Art.; 2018

Kingston University London

Queues and water collection from public taps emerge as a recurrent element in accounts about mid-twentieth century shantytowns in Buenos Aires. Starting as early as 4am, hundreds of residents (and, amongst these, mainly women and children) approached the few available sources of running water they had nearby to stock up for the day. By midday taps would be almost empty. This talk will explore the centrality of one element, taps, and one material, water, in mid-twentieth shantytown public space and politics. Crucial for survival, taps and water and the extension of networks were at the core of the first collective organisations in Buenos Aires shantytowns. Furthermore, they were also a key point of negotiation between residents? groups and local and national governments, also standing as one of the first items destroyed by governments which attempted at shantytown eradication.