Estou tentando acompanhar os movimentos de ocupação ao redor do mundo. Ultimamente, o que vem me chamando mais a atenção é a dinâmica de organização e manutenção dos acampamentos em si. Ontem, lendo neste blog sobre uma exposição chamada Post-it City, fiquei pensando que as fotos das ocupações poderiam muito bem se integrar à curadoria de obras. Também me lembrei dos protestos em Israel contra a alta dos alugueis (e do custo de vida) em que a classe média foi às ruas acampar. Não é de hoje que esta forma de protesto acontece. Mas a globalização deste tipo de movimento e as soluções criativas de ocupação do espaço e a reorganização destas micro-sociedades levantam questões importantes sobre o nosso tempo. E, por isso mesmo, merecem nossa total atenção.

Seguem algumas obras interessantes da exposição em exibição no Centro Centro, em Madrid:

Post-it City phenomena emphasise the reality of the urban territory as the place where distinctive uses and situations legitimately overlap, in opposition to the growing pressures to homogenise public space. In contrast to the ideals of the city as a place of consensus and consumption, temporary occupations of space reaffirm use value, reveal different needs and lacks that affect given collectives, and even promote creativity and the subjective imagination. From another standpoint, the temporary activities that contaminate public space with numerous para-architectural artefacts enable reflection on urban experience to redirect its attention towards the minuscule, thus correcting the arrogance of traditional architecture.

Economic Borders, by Daniella Pario:

The project focuses on the territory of Eastern Sicily, which has its starting point on the borderline of commerce: street vendors and roadside traders. This particular form of vending – deeply rooted in tradition – consists of a kind of trading system in which the traders move with their trucks on specific days between cities, neighborhoods and small towns in the region.

Francisca Benitez, Prótesis del Nuevo Exodo:

Every year, to commemorate the Exodus, practicing Jews build a temporary structure outdoors called sukkah, which they inhabit during seven days. Chapters I and II of Sukkah, in the fourth volume of the Seder Mo’Ed, provide a detailed discussion of the rules of construction (form, dimensions and materials), and the laws for its ritual use. In areas of New York with a large Jewish population, this religious practice changes the landscape every autumn. I have been documenting the temporary and intermittent appearance of this ephemeral city since I moved to Brooklyn in 1999.

Francisca Benítez, Gare de l’Est, 2005:

The images show bundles nesting in Parisian trees. They are the personal belongings of Afghani immigrants. In July 2005, two months before the Paris riots, Benítez recorded every tree next to the Gare de l’Est. (Illegal) immigrants stack there their possessions while waiting for another odd job, for continuing their journey.

Federica Verona and Cecilia Pirovano, Old wreck city:

Abandoned cars lose their original function and become containers, devices which the city takes possession of, because they have been stolen, or because their owners are often foreigners and have left the city or country. Stripped-down wrappers, available to anyone who wants to use them in some way, before they are destroyed forever by municipal bureaucracy. They live their new lives, particularly at night, and become a refuge where people sleep, eat, drink and take shelter from the rain and people’s gazes. The new occupiers are homeless Italians or foreigners. There have also been extreme cases of couples using them while they are waiting to be allocated social housing, or unemployed workers who have lost their homes.