ruins in the city

on the edge of miraflores, lima, heading towards san isidro is the Huaca Pucllana, a group of pre-Colombian ruins sitting nearby modern blocks of flats and the houses and schools of the peruvian well-off. the site, dating from 200-500AD, was a ceremonial site and is comprised of adobe bricks joined with a mud cement.

Huaca Pucllana is a fine example of the precarious relationship between the city and ruins. on the one hand, the site is what the city is not. the dry and dusty area creates a desert within the city, its difference exaggerated by the railings that form the perimeter and which place the Huaca beyond the pale. the ruins, a place to venerate, to protect, to unearth brick by brick as the city around it is being built upon brick by brick, are excluded from the city. on the other, however, the Huaca is a reminder of what the city was, what it will become and, thus, what is already is: a ruin.

the city can never exclude ruination, can never push the ruin beyond its boundaries for it is constantly decaying, whether at the hands of earthquakes or the planner's wrecking ball.

caresses

under the slogan of offering caresses, a band of health workers, sex workers, researchers and artists, among others, have been campaigning in lima to protest violence against women.

using a variety of strategies, including a blog, videos, poster campaigns and even a comic strip, "se ofrecen caricias" is a carnavalesque protest, an archetypal example of the way in which politics in art has been transformed into artistic politics.

the mapping of prostitution is also included, a means of reconfiguring the urban orientation of lima, and similar to another example of alternative mapping relating to the disappeared of the last Argentine dictatorship. referring to health centres, identity card offices, areas of crackdowns on prostitutes and transvestites (Plaza Manco Capac) and areas where sex workers trade, the map transforms lima into a space that revolves around sex work. as a consequence, the historic centre of the city, plaza de armas, the square that made lima the city of kings, is absent, lying beyond where the city is drawn - beyond the pale...

bar notable

what makes a "bar notable" notable? is it history? myth? marketing? over the course of three weeks last buenos aires winter i undertook to visit every single "bar notable" in a city famed for its café culture.

el Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires awards official "bar notable" status to 54 establishments of varying price, location and historical value. the criteria is vague. owners and bar staff of the bars are clueless or don't want to let on. having "bar notable" status is not just a question of kudos and advertising, however, since the GCBA also contributes to the upkeep of the bars (as well as placing restrictions on modifications).

over the course of the three weeks the variety of bars (cafés?) made it increasingly difficult to appreciate precisely what they did have in common. some of them didn't even seem particularly notable. so were the bares notable a set of commonalities? or was it simply a case of the marketing of commonality as a strategy of obscuring difference?

el preferido de palermo

it seemed auspicious to begin a blog about latin american cities with a photograph of "el preferido de palermo". bar, canteen and grocery all in one - what better place to seek out commonality?

"el preferido", or so someone once told me and i've never thought to tell anyone anything else, was named so because it was borges' favourite hangout. except that borges lived across the way some 40 years before "el preferido" opened its doors. but no matter, because the myth is shared - just like the myth of borges. for a writer so preoccupied with the mythic re-fashionings of the urban past ("Fundación mítica de Buenos Aires") "el preferido" seems a suitable story.

beginning with a photograph emphasises the image of the city and its relationship to the urban imaginary. a reminder that we can seek the common in what is here and now and what is no longer. the photograph also forms part of a photographic series i took last summer in buenos aires - photographs taken in all the so-called "bares notables" as designated by the Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, of which more anon.