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...