A cidade, o arroio, o lago e alguns apagamentos: A observação como processo artístico e espaço crítico

Abstract

The city of Porto Alegre had its origin in the vicinity of the Dilúvio, a stream that empties into the Guaíba Lake. Both the course of the stream and city limits have been changed by slow-moving and suc­cessive urban development projects. The landfills have created a vast land mass that has crept over the lake, which has become a subject of assessment by public administration at local, state and federal levels. The process of expanding city limits has generated erasure and obliteration that, if observed, reveals the economic interests behind these operations. The choice of Porto Alegre as a host city for some of the 2014 World Cup games was used as a pretext for building large-scale public works. It was decided that car lanes would be widened facilitating access to the stadium, which led to the removal of low-income residents from the surrounding area, as well as the removal of trees that were part of an integrated landscape. This study will focus on the action of observing – experienced as an artistic practice within an urban context – aiming to identify recent erasures (what has been deleted or obliterated) and changes occurring recently on this side of the town. Thus, we place the starting point of the current investigation at the mouth and surrounding areas of the Dilúvio Stream, where a new bridge has just been built. We will use the methodology of the project Fração Localizada: Dilúvio (initiated in 2003), based on poetic incursions, walks, observations, descriptions, narratives and the setting up of a database that could enable the development of artistic propositions ques­tioning aspects of erasure and changes taking place in this context.