“Pintó la Isla”: community-based street art and the dignification of degraded spaces. The case of Isla Maciel (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

GONZALEZ BRACCO, MERCEDES

Amman

Congreso; Art and the City: Urban Space, Art and Social Change; 2023

Columbia Global Centers

Isla Maciel (MacielIsland) is a small group of blocks that during the 20th century housed familieslinked to port work and refrigeration companies that surrounded the area. Althoughis not properly an island, the neighborhood is called that way because it is locatedbetween the Riachuelo (little river) - which separates it from thetourist neighborhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires -, the Sarmiento Canal and theMaciel stream (today piped). From the 1970s that world began to decline (theport was shut down, and companies closed or they moved their facilities), andthe Island came to be considered an abandoned and dangerous place, linked tocrime and prostitution. However, it never lost its cultural identity linked toother elements that to this day are marks of pride, such as having been thelocation of a series of well-known national films and having the San Telmostadium, which brings together the football passions of many residents. Facedwith this, for some years, a group of neighbors and local school authoritiesbegan to devise strategies to make the island visible in positive terms. Thesestrategies included the construction of a community museum - which began in aschool classroom until they got their own headquarters -, the development oftourist visits - both with local residents and with foreign visitors - and,what is interesting here, a project of community-based muralism that bringstogether internationally renowned artists. These actions, according to theresidents and local workers, gradually changed the face of the place, theperception of the visitors and, to some extent, of the inhabitants themselveswith the place. This presentation gathers the results of a field work about therole of “Pintó la Isla” – muralism group – in the effective changes in the imaginary about the place inrelation to the realization of these actions. Based on participant observationsand interviews with the actors who carry out these actions, it is interestingto analyze what are the (new) perspectives on the place - both from residentsand visitors - while also seeking to account for the limitations of this typeof action.