In August 2019, thousands of women took to the streets of Mexico City in two massive demonstrations to protest the ever-rising wave of gender-based violence washing across the country. What characterized the protests was rage, expressed among other things through graffiti that covered the protest sites, including the most important monument in the country, El Ángel de la Independencia. The mainstream media, politicians, and even renowned left-leaning public intellectuals condemned the protesters for this anger (unbecoming, especially of women) and for the widespread vandalism of public property and national patrimony (even more unbecoming). But among the sea of critics, the protestors found an unexpected ally: the art restorers whose job it is to repair and beautify the nation’s monuments. A group of art restorers – the Restauradoras con Glitter – came together to support the protests by refusing to restore El Ángel, withholding their labor and their ostensible duty to the nation. Prior to the protests, the restauradoras had no history of organizing and were not politically involved with any social movement or political cause; many did not even identify as feminists. In this talk I analyze the Restauradoras’ story in an attempt to understand how protests and riots serve as forms of political communication and politicize people who were previously alienated from or indifferent to politics. I examine the dynamics by which the Restauradoras’s political views were transformed, how this politicization was rooted in their professional expertise, and how they came to organize themselves as a collective which then became one of the most visible faces of the feminist movement in Mexico. 

Cette conférence est organisée par ÉRIGAL. Pour rejoindre la conférence sur Zoom, contactez  info@erigal.org.  

DATE : jeudi 8 octobre, 9h-11h