Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

We are an activist collective based in Bogotá that works in the physical and social self-construction of collective infrastructure for cultural self-management in geographically peripheral areas of cities. Political, economic, social, and decisional peripheries form the multidimensional context in which we work and where we, in articulation with communities, seek alternative modes of action to rebalance asymmetries in power relations in city policies. We do this through self-construction and self-management of community infrastructure, community-based research, knowledge sharing, and a clear political and critical standpoint.

We work as a think tank around citizen appropriation of the urban context. Part of our work and effort focuses on the collective production and dissemination of knowledge and experiences developed in different types of urban laboratories.

While at Headlands

We plan to focus on the identity and management of common spaces, and the way that different agents (such as the public, communitarians, private parties, activists, associations, the academy, cultural institutions, and so on) have a role in common spaces and could dialogue—as an urban negotiation—not only in a verbal way, but also in a material and symbolic way.

We would like to have a multiscale approach to the territorial controversies in the regional area of Headlands, and to one or more very specific spatial situations that could exemplify them.