From Oct 16th through Nov 25th, 2009
Since the sixties, cities have changed at a dramatic pace. This has been due in large part to real estate and financial interests, disconnected from collective needs. This deep restructuring has affected both demography and socio-economic configurations. The quality of life within each growing sector of the population has been compromised.
At the end of the Twentieth Century, while some neighborhoods deteriorated, others regenerated socially via occupation by the upper class and so generating a rapid rise in the economic value. Every year, more and more people are displaced from their homes because of abandonment of neighborhoods, land expropriation and re-zoning, rate rises and costs that outstrip salaries. The constant pressures of urban decay, land speculation, the establishment of ghettos, the influx of international migrants or the homeless from neighboring regions makes as essential review of our ideas of habitability.
A group of artists has rallied against these situations, fostering a counter culture where contemporary city decadence is approached from different angles. They challenge housing problems, the use of public space, land speculation, urban settlements on the fringe of legality, enforced desertion of neighborhoods and buildings, urban decay and the formation of ghettos. They demand a new approach to homelessness.
Individual and collective artists such as Raúl Cárdenas/Torolab, Santiago Cirugeda/Recetas Urbanas, Democracia, Gean Moreno, Ernesto Oroza, Juan Carlos Robles and Todo por la Praxis, illustrate the following cases in Madrid, Seville, Miami, Tijuana and Havana.
Activities at the Cultural Center of Spain are sponsored by the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation to the Development (AECID), Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.
Centro Cultural Español
800 Douglas Road. Suite 170
Coral Gables, FL 33134
305.448.9677
www.ccemiami.org
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