Political bodies, poetic resistances: Praça da Estação in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
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Date
2016
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AESOP
Abstract
The "Praça da Estação" (Station Square) in Belo Horizonte/Brazil, is the point from where this planned city has grown. With only twenty years, the first train station building was demolished, to be replaced by a new one, revealing a history of constructions and deconstructions that accompanies the story of this "new" metropolis, always under construction. In 2003, this central square suffered an intense refurbishment, justified by the need to create new spaces for major city events. In its new configuration, a sterile space was created, easily disciplinable, free from the urban mnemonic inscription.
The station building, previously integrated to the urban life, became museum, which gave its back to the city, placing culture as an articulator of gentrification in the very heart of downtown. Ironically, in 2009, the mayor issued an order prohibiting the performance of "events of any kind" in this location, which led to a popular insurgent movement that occupied the square on Saturdays, for months, transforming it in a downtown cemented sort of beach. Under the motto to occupy the city, the square then received other forms of art such as the “Sombra Grátis” (Free Shadow) performance, by the local art collective LIO, in which performers climb ladders and open umbrellas to shelter citizens that were waiting for theirs buses under the scorching sun of the square, that has no trees.
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Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
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