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.
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seeking the common in Latin American cityscapes
el preferido de palermo
About this blog...
Latin American Cities in Common looks for shared spatial and cultural practices in, between and beyond particular urban environments.
though it acknowledges that Latin American cities are often dangerous, impoverished and vice-ridden landscapes, it emerges from a positive urban philosophy, a belief in the power of commonality and the common(s) as a means to construct urban communities.
it seeks to celebrate rather than denigrate the city of men that is so often placed in opposition to some implied and unreachable city of god.
though it acknowledges that Latin American cities are often dangerous, impoverished and vice-ridden landscapes, it emerges from a positive urban philosophy, a belief in the power of commonality and the common(s) as a means to construct urban communities.
it seeks to celebrate rather than denigrate the city of men that is so often placed in opposition to some implied and unreachable city of god.
Labels
- artistic politics (2)
- bar (2)
- bares notables (3)
- beyond the pale (3)
- Buenos Aires (3)
- desert (1)
- DMZ (1)
- everyday life (1)
- exception (1)
- ghosts (1)
- Latin America (1)
- lima (3)
- lost city (1)
- myth (1)
- New York (2)
- photography (1)
- private (1)
- ruins (2)
- violence (1)
- war (1)
- women (1)
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