De muro de paz a muro de la vergüenza. Prácticas artísticas populares feministas en México.

Abstract

This is a series of preliminary reflections on the multiple relationships that build and transform the meanings of an every-day object. From an anthropological perspective, I analyze the effects and responses triggered by the installation of a metal barrier around the National Palace, the so-called “peace wall”, a “security” measure at the outset of the feminist protests scheduled for March 8, 2021. In this inquiry, I focus on the discourses and disputed actions that dislocate and relocate these metal fences. I propose to understand the aesthetic and discursive interventions on the wall as feminist popular artistic practices, i.e., actions that transform the object into a memorial and rename it the “wall of shame”. These actions challenge the official historical narrative in which the feminist movement is identified as a “threat” and restate the social problems that call for protests. I argue that the wall can be understood as an artistic oeuvre that both honors murdered women and demands justice for them. The interventions on the wall allow me to reflect on the artist/work/spectator triad, an amalgam difficult to dissociate. An object converted into a work can be understood as a provocation that invites us to continue thinking about how the power is manifested and how we question it.