El Colgadero 1st Ed., Isabella Celis Campos

El Colgadero 1st Edition: San Victorino

Artistic Intervention in public space
Socio-cultural exchange
Plaza de San Victorino, Bogotá D.C. Colombia
2019

This project proposes to rethink the social dynamics of the public space of Bogotá, Colombia through the activation, in non-institutional approaches, of the cultural processes in the public space of the city.

It is an artistic intervention in the form of a clothesline where objects, knowledges, experiences, services and everything that can be exchanged in this context are “hung” and taken down. El colgadero is an allegory of the clothesline, it is a rope that invites exchange: someone picks up something and in return offers something else, resulting in dialogues between the people who inhabit the city. The rope works as an object that creates a place to appropriate, where citizens can initiate a more significant and closer relationship with the space they constantly use.

The first version of El Colgadero took place in Plaza de San Victorino, a square that brings together the largest informal and popular trade in the city. Thanks to the cultural richness of this space, the Collective decided to start the exchange by hanging (on the rope) some pieces-icons produced by the members with the post-Creole aesthetics and popular contents that identifies this space and, in general, Colombian culture.

During the time that the rope was hung, tangible and intangible exchanges took place. As a place of informal commerce, many people proposed to pick up an object and exchange it for a good or service. For example, bagging shoes, offering coffee, telling stories, or hanging another object. These dialogues and meetings were between the people themselves and a place was given to create community.

El Colgadero earned Convocatoria Bota (Bota Call) awarded by the Art Department at Los Andes University, that funded the project.