In the essay “Ciudad Kennedy: Memoria y Realidad. Proyecto colectivo de creación plástica” [Kennedy City: Memory and Reality. Visual Art Creation – A Group Project] (2000-2002) the artist and professor Raúl Cristancho discusses the Project and analyzes aesthetic and social intervention mechanisms in Kennedy, an area south of Bogotá. He also mentions the historical circumstances that symbolically formed this city, seeking to express in visual art terms the experiences and memories associated with the place. Cristancho believes that works of art in public spaces can catalyze a community’s understanding when they reveal the present in their relationships with the past. A review of the works produced by students involved in the Project helps to grasp concepts such as community, politics, history, public art, and social intervention. This essay is divided into four parts: 1. Introduction; 2. Historical Context; 3. The Project and its Creative Process; and 4. The Works.

Ciudad Kennedy: Memoria y realidad [Kennedy City: Memory and Reality] was an extracurricular pedagogical program sponsored by the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia [National University of Colombia’s School of Visual Arts] that was awarded the “Prometeo” [Prometheus] research grant by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2000). The Project was coordinated by Raúl Cristancho and implemented by the students Jaime Barragán, Miler Lagos, Catalina Rincón, Luis Carlos Beltrán, Máximo Flórez, Ricardo León, Michael López, and Camilo Martínez. In an innovative move, Cristancho sought to broaden the scope of the artists’ visual languages by including discussions about art in the public space and its relationship to community processes. In this way he orchestrated rare connections with local leaders, community representatives, and families in Kennedy. For the project Ciudad Kennedy: Memoria y realidad, the artists metaphorically reconstructed the history of the town.

The Colombian university professor, artist, and art curator Raúl Cristancho (b. 1955) developed a relevant picture of social mechanisms involved in the teaching of the arts and cultural development in communities. Ciudad Kennedy: Memoria y realidad is one of the main artistic processes that incorporates and evaluates group aesthetic attitudes.

Some projects facilitate the documentation of Colombian institutions’ socio-artistic processes, such as Piel de la Memoria [The Skin of Memory] by the anthropologist Pilar Riaño and the North American artist Suzanne Lacy (b. 1945) (see “Hacer arte público como memoria colectiva, como metáfora y como acción” [Making Public Art as Group Memory, as Metaphor, and as Action], doc. # 1093626) and C’undua by the Laboratorio Mapa Teatro [Laboratory Map Theater] (see, “Pequeño laboratorio del imaginario social” [Small Laboratory of Social Imagination], doc. # 1094236).