Fernando Traverso's Bicis
On March 24, 2001, Fernando Traverso, an Argentinian hospital worker, political activist, and artist, began spray painting a series of twenty-nine life-sized bicycle stencils throughout the streets of his home town
Background
For most members of the resistance, bicycles were the primary mode of transport. As Traverso's friends began disappearing after the 1976
Memory Art
In the years following the
Alongside Traverso's graffiti art, Rosario is also home to Argentina's first official Museum of Memory which offers a nuanced narration of the nations dictatorial past. Under the direction of Ruben Chababo, the
The Bici as memorial
Fernando Traverso's Bici image could originally only be found in the streets of Rosario, but has since become an international symbol remembering those who were disappeared under the various military dictatorships in Latin America, specifically during the 1970s.[3] Traverso's memorial has transformed Rosario's urban space into a place of memory[4] and is only one of many political memorials in Argentina and in Latin America [See External Links].
Traverso visited the US-Mexico border from May 25 through June 1, 2009 to attend the inaugural event for the exhibition of The Disappeared. During his visit he met with and held workshops for students from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Traverso, along with Rubin Center Assistant Director Kerry Doyle and UACJ Visual Arts Professor Leon de la Rosa, came up with Bicycles on the Border, an action using Traverso's bici image to respond to the current border realities.[5] He held two daylong workshops at both universities, during which groups of students and community members printed images of bikes on large fabric banners. Those who participated in the action were encouraged to take the banners and take pictures of them in places along the border that evoke the ideas of disappearance, loss, or injustice that have come to be associated with the bici image.
These photographs became his next project, El Nieto de Herminia (Herminia's Grandson). The image of the bici came to represent those who were disappeared. Family photos were taken with the bici in place of the missing relative. The original memorial started off small but "his art has spiraled outward, enmeshing more and more participants."[3]
His most recent project involves numbering real bicycles. He is encouraging cyclists to rescue abandoned bikes that have waited for years to be picked up by their owners. Just as the younger Argentine generations are becoming active – and demanding recognition for those who were disappeared – so are Traverso's bicis. The bici images and everything this memorial has grown to incorporate serve as a continuous reminder of those who were disappeared. In Traverso's word's, "forgetting becomes the repressor's ultimate triumph."[4]
See also
- History of Argentina
- National Reorganization Process
- Dirty War
- Operation Condor
- National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP)
- Human Rights in Argentina
- Street art
References
- ^ a b c d Hite, Katherine: "The Globality of art and memory making." In Politics and the Art Commemoration: Memorials to Struggle in Latin America and Spain. Routledge Publishing, 90-111. 2011.
- ^ "Visiting Artists Fernando Traverso and Lourdes Portillo".
- ^ a b Reuter, Laurel. "The Disappeared." In The Disappeared, Los Disaparecidos. 25-35. Grand Forks: North Dakota Museum of Art, 2006.
- ^ a b Romero, Juan Carlos. "Fernando Traverso: Interventions on the Streets of Rosario." In The Disappeared, Los Disaparecidos. 58-61. Grand Forks: North Dakota Museum of Art, 2006.
- ^ "Academics Portal Index Home". Archived from the original on 6 April 2012. Retrieved 1 May 2016.