The urgency of this intervention arises from the rapid erosion of local identity within the contemporary urban landscape, specifically under the pressures of gentrification and turistization. As a curator and researcher at the UAM Madrid, my voice is activated from the friction between academic discourse and the lived reality of communities facing cultural displacement. We are witnessing a systemic flattening of the city, where memory is often treated as an obstacle to profit rather than a foundational human right. This piece is a response to that flattening—a necessary rupture in the seamless narrative of urban progress. It addresses the "socioplastic" need to reshape our environments not through top-down mandates, but through the tactile, messy, and urgent demands of collective memory. By situating this work within the framework of the Human Rights and Culture Congress, we acknowledge that the right to a city is inextricably linked to the right to preserve one’s cultural ecology against the homogenizing forces of global capital. At the core of this project lies a process-based investigation into the material residues of the neighborhood—a method of "urban gleaning" that transforms discarded narratives into active socioplastic structures. The process begins with the systematic collection of oral histories and physical artifacts from sites slated for redevelopment. These elements are not merely archived; they are reconfigured into modular, mobile installations that drift through the city. This operational logic treats the artwork as a living organism: a series of translucent panels and soundscapes that mutate based on their physical proximity to the public. Each module functions as a sensory bridge, sequencing memories of local labor and domestic life into the very streets from which they are being erased. The work behaves as a feedback loop, where the material density of the past is layered over the sterile surfaces of the present, forcing a physical encounter with what has been made invisible.
The conceptual scaffolding of this work integrates the "socioplastic" fluidity of Joseph Beuys with contemporary concerns of "distributed agency" as described by Jane Bennett. By treating the city as a vibrant, non-human participant, we move beyond the symbolic and toward an operative ecology of care. This approach aligns with the "curatorial as method," where the act of assembling is a political gesture of resistance. Furthermore, the project engages with what Hito Steyerl terms "media drift," allowing the documentation and the physical intervention to blur. This avoids the trap of deep theoretical exposition in favor of a light, functional framework that asks: how can we sustain cultural diversity when the physical infrastructure of that diversity is being dismantled? The piece functions as a site-specific inquiry into the ethics of coexistence, positioning the artist and the citizen as co-investigators in a landscape where memory is a contested resource. As the project unfolds, it intentionally migrates across different media and territorial contexts, refusing to remain a static gallery object. It mutates from a physical installation in a Madrid plaza into a digital repository, then further drifts into the format of a community-led workshop. This trajectory ensures that the work remains mobile-first, accessible to those who are often excluded from high-cultural spaces. When re-situated in a different neighborhood or digital platform, the work adapts its scale and intensity, echoing the "liquid" nature of modern social movements. Verbs of movement—drifting, leaking, scaling, and infecting—define its behavior. It does not just represent gentrification; it physically navigates the same routes as the capital that drives it, but carries with it the "friction" of local heritage. This media drift ensures that the project’s impact is not localized to a single event but is distributed across a wider urban and digital territory.
Rather than offering a fixed conclusion, this work serves as an operative opening for future interventions in the field of human rights and urbanism. It suggests a shift in attention away from the "finished monument" and toward the "ongoing process" of cultural resilience. What new configurations of community resistance become possible when we treat the city as a plastic medium? The project invites a permanent state of mutation, encouraging artists and scholars to move beyond the ivory tower and into the streets as active participants in the defense of cultural ecology. This is a curatorial launchpad for a sustained dialogue between academic research and social activism, proposing a method where memory is not a relic of the past, but a generative tool for a more inclusive and pluralistic future. It leaves the door open for a continuous, collective transformation that resists exclusion and amplifies the voices of the displaced.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2019/05/human-rights-and-culture.html?m=1
