One of the most intriguing groups in Guadalajara is Com:Plot, whose name is a play on words; “com,” for “community,” and “plot” as in “scheme” – plus the word “complot” means “conspiracy” in Spanish.
Com:Plot’s mission is to encourage the city’s development in a more sustainable, more human-oriented direction. One of the most successful projects to date has been the City Walks, or Camina por Guadalajara. The city is divided up by participants and a route stretching across the city is mapped for each team. The 40-kilometer walk is done over two days, and along the way, participants take note of the changes along the way.
“The idea is that we go along discovering the city: how it’s growing, what’s happening, how it smells, how it feels at different times of the day,” said Patricia Martínez, an environmental journalist and occasional Esperanza Project contributor who has joined forces with Com:Plot. So we experience the city with all our senses. It’s more than a recognition of what occurs within our urban borders, it also proposes other ideas like the recuperation of public spaces.”
They pass through posh suburbs, working-class neighborhoods, abandoned byways and truly depressing locales. When each team returns, members put their heads together to identify a problem area where they will plan an “intervention,” an action that will help turn the tide in that troubled area, or at least bring public awareness to the problem.
Patricia shared with me some stories and photos from the second Caminata, held last fall. Right now they are gearing up for the third Caminata, to be held the second weekend in February in conjunction with the city’s 467th anniversary. If you’re interested in participating, check out their website here for more info. Meanwhile, here’s a little “before” and “after” from one of the group’s most creative “interventions.”
Miravalle Playground: Before
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Miravalle Playground: After
The destruction was too costly to repair or replace. What the group did do was clean up the area and use stark white stenciled letters to illustrate what should have been there: Proud mother, lovers, children, tree, paint, trash can, basketball game, green. The result:
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Another intervention, equally as poignant, took place at Las Pintas lake. This lake between Tlaquepaque and El Salto has been polluted since the late ’70s, and the children of young families who live nearby have no place to play.
The intervention: Com:Plot members created sillhouettes of children playing, fishing, spending time at the lake like they used to do.
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El Parque Nómada, or Nomad Park, was a profound statement on the need for a more inclusive transportation policy. The team created crosswalks and bikeways where there were none, literally rolling out the red carpet for pedestrians to demonstrate that they were really “kings of the road.”
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In their own words:
“El Parque Nómada questions the monopoly of the use of public space by automobiles, liberating the space monopolized by cars to enable the use of other activities and more inclusive transportation alternatives. The citizen on foot can experience the possibility of a city at a more human scale in his or her own neighborhood, with pleasant spaces where they can circulate by bicycle, walk, or rest, meeting other walkers or having the chance to develop their own dynamic. With this exercise, we evoke the longing that is dispersed amid the auto exhaust and the noise of engines, so that this desire will grow and these neighbors will take up the idea themselves.”
One more intervention, the bus stop, was very practical. The team built a bus shelter from discarded wooden pallets. When a government inspector complained and threatened to remove it, they simply ignored him; commuters showed their approval with appreciative use, and the shelters remained.
Click Patricia_Martinez_interview to see the interview with Patricia.
