The occupation of public space between appropriation and deliberation. Democratic graffiti in Bogota, Colombia

• In Event: Fractured Publics in Vulnerable Spaces

Abstract

Graffiti in Bogotá dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. As in other large cities of the world, it was long considered a nuisance targeted by repressive policies. At the end of the 1990s, two mayors introduced a paradigm shift, valorizing street art as a contribution to the improvement of urban quality of life. Mural paintings boomed in the 2000s, when two disruptive events opened a period of intense negotiations between artists and policy-makers. In 2010, a court ordered the mayor to set legal limits to the use of public space by street-artists, and in 2011, a 17 year-old painter was shot by the police. It became a legal and moral obligation to reach an agreement over the practice of wall painting.
The paper focuses on the negotiations that led to the enactment in 2013 of decree 075. It looks at the way both parties faced their own paradox: the mayor wanted to allow artistic expressions without jeopardizing the “integrity of public space and its assignment to common use” (art. 82 of the Colombian constitution); the artists wanted to be legally offered walls without renouncing to what constitutes the core identity of graffiti: it is a spontaneous, ephemeras and illegal expression.
Beyond the negotiation for decree 075, graffiti and stencils are interpreted as elements of grass-roots democratization: they allow young disenfranchised sectors to express themselves and convey political messages in a context of weak electoral participation.

Author

• Olivier Dabène, Sciences Po