Press release | Culture | 12. November 2021
Lima’s public spaces reclaimed by art
CHANGING PLACES/ESPACIOS REVELADOS, a five-month series of artistic interventions in public spaces, will launch in Lima on November 12, 2021. Between then and March 2022, 27 site-specific artworks will be created in three central neighborhoods divided by the Rímac river. They will invite visitors to cross the bridge – both physically and mentally.
Following months in lockdown, artists and collectives from Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain will be creating a moment of public life. Installations, performances, and architectural displays will each form part of a number of tours through the city on one weekend a month. They will enable to experience the city with its fractures and contradictions in a new way, foster new encounters, and create new scope for tackling the future through a collaborative effort.
The artistic interventions will draw people’s attention to the city’s shared spaces, as well as the divided ones. They will show in tangible form how barriers shape a society. Even though the colonial-era city walls have long since fallen victim to urban expansion, invisible boundary lines – such as prejudices and exclusion – are making it harder for the 11 million inhabitants to coexist and widening the gaps between them.
To mark the start of the series on November 12–14, 2021, six artworks will be on display in three areas of the city: An old tobacco factory is to become a space for encounters, people’s experiences of the pandemic are to be shared through letters in the former central post office, and the healing songs of Shipibo women will invite listeners to turn their thoughts to the polluted river. Excluded sections of the population will become visible on the city’s streets and in its squares, putting the spotlight on both colonial-era and migrant experiences. People living in the districts either side of the Rímac will work with artists to create a social sculpture, build a symbolic bridge over the river, or restore their collective memory by coming together to construct a snake-shaped building for children using a traditional adobe technique. The artworks can be experienced one by one or all together on several tours each day.
More information on the series can be found here:
The creation of the site-specific artworks marks the culmination of over two years of the city’s dividing lines in transdisciplinary dialogues, digital conferences, artistic research, and production.
Artists and collectives involved in the first part of the series: Comunespacio, Sandra Nakamura, elgalpón.espacio, estudio de arquitectura 24/7, DIADIA arquitectura, Oscar Pacheco, and Proyecto Yivi (Mexico).
Locations: Casa de Correos y Telégrafos, Trujillo Bridge, Church of San Lázaro, the former Backus brewery, and the Alameda de los Descalzos, which links the Balta Bridge and the Conjunto Habitacional La Muralla.
About the CHANGING PLACES/ESPACIOS REVELADOS project series
ESPACIOS REVELADOS/CHANGING PLACES in Lima is a collaboration between Siemens Stiftung and Centro Cultural de la Universidad del Pacífico together with the Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima, the Gerencia de Cultura y el Programa Municipal para la Recuperación del Centro Histórico – PROLIMA, the Municipalidad del Rímac, the Ministerio de Cultura, the Centro Cultural de la Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, the Escuela Nacional Superior Autónoma de Bellas Artes, the Goethe-Institut Peru, the Beneficencia de Lima, the Museo de los Descalzos, the Revista Devenir, Ícomos Perú, Yuyai-UNI, and others.
The ESPACIOS REVELADOS/CHANGING PLACES series has been taking place in various Latin American cities with independent projects since 2014. The series promotes experimental art that is specific to its location and creates a dialogue between the city and its inhabitants.