WEBVTT

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We live in a real war,
with real deaths,

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but also a…
symbolic, aesthetic war,

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where spectacle
is what reigns.

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Achieving influence
in public space,

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through a gesture,
perhaps a very humble one, like a mural,

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is important.

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It\'s a utensil, a tool,

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that can help you approach
a lot of young people

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who are very interested
in seeing urban expressions.

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In the neighborhood, people tell you
\"Your painting sucks!\"

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or \"That\'s freaking good, thanks!\",

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that feedback from the community
is totally enriching.

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That never happens
in a gallery.

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Graffiti is a very powerful tool.

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You can change a person.

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♪ They call me this and that
\'cos I live my way ♪

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♪ I get dirty from this life
as if it were mud ♪

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♪ I try, I go
if it fails, I\'m screwed ♪

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♪ Always true to my desire
elbow to elbow ♪

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♪ The north takes me away
the north is mine ♪

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♪ I write it
every morning is a challenge ♪

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♪ I breathe, watch, and trust ♪

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♪ And when the night comes
I stare at the moon and smile ♪

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♪ Nomad life
wherever life ♪

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♪ Lighter life
Live your way ♪

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♪ Live carefree
live how you want ♪

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♪ Don\'t let anyone set your horizon
or border ♪

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♪ Live without a boss
live without a master ♪

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♪ I\'m led by the beat
of my heart ♪

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♪ I ride the wind
and this song ♪

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♪ They say I\'m lost
I say revolution ♪

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The city as such...

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is a field where everyone

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is fighting, symbolically,

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and even physically,
for a space.

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It\'s a territory of contrasts,

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with cultures, colors, flavors,

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it\'s very diverse,
with all kinds of people.

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Much of the Mexican territory,
but notably Mexico City,

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shows, in urban life, the coexistence of

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very different cultural stages.

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There are pre-Columbian buildings,

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there is iconography
from the colonial and modern era,

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and the emblems of modernity.

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We appropriate
very diverse cultural references,

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we digest them
inside our identity.

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Therefore,
in that mixing game,

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there\'s always conflict.

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In general,
violence sells.

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The use of violence
– not only physical, but also intellectual –

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I think has been
a very relevant tool

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that the system uses to control
social and political discourse.

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And I think we can be more creative
in creating alternatives to that.

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I generally paint animals.

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Therefore, it reflects a certain aspect
of how wild the urban context is,

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and how we allow ourselves
to be manipulated, or commodified,

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not just us as people, but our lives,

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become a product.

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The fact of doing things
on the street, or in public space,

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changes the dynamics of the gallery,
of the author,

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that very individualistic vision
of doing it alone.

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Because often when you are
doing things on the street,

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illegal things,
you have to take care of each other.

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When I was very young,
I started painting graffiti,

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I experimented a bit with the stencil,
but it felt very repetitive,

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and alien, more than anything.

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I felt I wanted to create something...
that went beyond that with its message.

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And I started to work
in engraving,

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because it\'s more democratic...

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it\'s a reproducible art.

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Doing things collectively,

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and within
our ethics and ideals,

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is possible.

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It takes a lot of work,
but it exists.

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Trying to make people understand
that we are at a critical moment,

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in that the images
have to be different.

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And that has arisen
this concern in me,

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of always thinking if...

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if an image, placed in a public space,

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can send an interesting message,

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what do I want to do,

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what do I want to say.

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We could even call it
a kind of urban ritual.

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Because... just by going out on the street,
sometimes you have to play a role…

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of a kind of...
magic act.

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At the end of the day
they\'re like little sorcerers

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that connect to each other on the streets,
or wherever they are.

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The mask for me
has been like living different realities,

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finding my own face
in other people\'s faces.

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We go through life looking for
an identity, often false ones,

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and somehow
they become protective.

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You don\'t choose the mask,

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but rather the mask chooses you.

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The pre-Hispanic aesthetic in my work

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is a kind of protest too,

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against what we\'ve been told many times:

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that we\'re the conquered ones.

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Fortunately, the pre-Hispanic cultures
left us a wonderful legacy,

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that we are taught, as a society,

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to be ashamed of.

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But actually we shouldn\'t be.

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Being called \'brown\', \'oaxaqueño\',

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or \'Mexican\'

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isn\'t an insult,
on the contrary, it\'s a source of pride.

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And many murals
speak precisely about that,

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the values of a country,
the values we should have,

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about our past,
and understanding it.

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And in that sense,

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we\'re bombarded with muralism

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ever since we\'re kids.

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If you go to C.U., University City,

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all its buildings are full of murals.

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For me it\'s been a great influence.

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Apart from the impact
it has on a visual level,

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seeing a large-format wall,

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it\'s also about what can be said, right?

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When muralism began,

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it was to educate a People.

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The idea of painting murals

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starts in the revolutionary decade,

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around 1913.

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In the revolutionary period,

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there was staunch anticlericism,

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but muralism was more than that,

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artists began to incorporate

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elements that recovered
a Mexican tradition and cultural identity.

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And I think the symbolism
is also very relevant

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in the presence of ancient Mexico
in murals.

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All this configured a very powerful
educational and cultural program,

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which put visual works in a central place.

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One of the achievements is the technique,

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breaking away from bi-dimensionality,
and creating effects.

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The design of spaces

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that are integrated into the architecture,

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but at the same time

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show very
avant-garde atmospheres.

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It\'s very important to point out
that this movement was not homogeneous.

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Nearly everybody was linked to Marxism,

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in its different shades,

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and to a certain indigenous vision,

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a certain political stance of
nationalism, nation-state.

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And the muralists began
to become aware,

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and they started to change the iconography

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for panels or figures that represent

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Mexico\'s political and revolutionary reality.

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It was a diversity of approaches,
positions, iconographies.

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Siqueiros was the great ideologue.

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The one that produced the necessary concepts.

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Concepts such as the citizen artist,
are fundamental.

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Siqueiros, in his challenges
of a new public art,

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proposed that there must be murals

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that are literally transportable,

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that can walk alongside
social mobilization.

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Siqueiros said
\"engraving is a mobile mural\",

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a mural on the street,
and \'El Machete\' served that purpose,

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and its motto was
a quatrain by Gachita Amador,

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which reads:

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\"The machete is used to cut the cane,

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to open the paths in shady forests,

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to behead snakes, cut all weeds,

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and bring down the pride of the impious rich\".

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This poetic power, etcetera,

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to the streets.

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When the 43 students from
Ayotzinapa School were disappeared,

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the State discourse was very similar

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to what they always say when...

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they go too far.

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When they realize that they exceeded
the limits of their own brutality.

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But what they didn\'t count on,
or what they couldn\'t foresee,

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is that Ayotzinapa School

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has a long tradition
of political organization.

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This allowed the case of the 43 students
not to be forgotten,

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like many other cases,
many other students,

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so they began to organize,

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and produced the largest
demonstrations since 2012.

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THIS WAS HEARD

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FROM THE SPEAKERS

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OF THE NATIONAL PALACE

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WE UNDERSTAND AND RESPECT YOUR
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO DEMONSTRATE

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WE WILL ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW
TO MAINTAIN SAFETY AND PUBLIC ORDER

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THIS IS WHAT VIOLENCE
IS HIDING.

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Two, three, four, five, six…!

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Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…!

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Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…!

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Thirty-seven, thirty-eight,
thirty-nine, forty...!

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Forty-one, forty-two,
forty-three!

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IT\'S TIME TO CHANGE EVERYTHING

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THIS IS NOT THE COUNTRY
YOU DREAMED OF

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BUT YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT

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43 MISSING

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AYOTZINAPA WAS JUST THE BEGINNING

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OF OUR HISTORY

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OF HIS END

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YOU TRIED TO HIDE THE TRUTH

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YOU TRIED TO FOOL US

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IT\'S TIME TO CHANGE EVERYTHING

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GO AWAY

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REXISTE

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I think that
when we first started doing it,

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it wasn\'t like \"Let\'s make art\",
or anything like that,

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but actually
these were the forms we found,

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to communicate
what we think.

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HENCHMAN PRESS

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IT WAS YOU DUARTE

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There\'s a very prescribed way

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of how protest should be done.

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And I think...

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the essential part of Rexiste

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is that we\'ve tried
to get out of that norm.

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IF THEY TAKE OUR NETWORKS
WE\'LL TAKE THE STREET

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For me, an essential part of Rexiste
is that we\'ve tried to be an echo.

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And to be an echo,
you have to listen.

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We\'ve learned from the people
who seek justice and dignity in this country.

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And we have decided precisely that:
to be an echo, and not the voice.

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A YEAR AGO 30 LITERS OF PAINT
AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE

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ZEROED IN ON THE CULPRITS

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HACKING THE POWER IS THAT SIMPLE
IT WAS THE STATE

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THERE\'S NO TURNING BACK NOW

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IT\'S TIME TO CHANGE EVERYTHING

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Rexiste has several peculiarities.

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One of them is that
it renews the language of street art.

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And it does so through something
that seemed lost,

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which is monumentality.

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But since monumental works
can\'t be made outside the demonstrations,

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Rexiste decided to have a strategy

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in which it produced
within the demonstration,

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that is, the demonstration
was their kind of shield.

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And besides that,
it provided us with phrases.

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The paintings of Rexiste

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come from the social mobilization

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and they reinforce it, and give us

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new ways of expressing our protest.

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Public space
as a political category,

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derives from a collective construction.

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Of social ties and relationships

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that are produced

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in a given physical space.

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The movement managed to create
at least one symbol that remains,

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which is the anti-monument for the 43,
in Reforma.

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The people\'s organization installed it,

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that is, they didn\'t have
authorization from the State,

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and it hasn\'t been removed,
and probably won\'t be removed soon,

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because it has social legitimacy.

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An anti-monument
in the streets of Mexico City,

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these are small gestures that...

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discreetly,

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are expressing, or making visible,

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opposition to an imposed system.

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We talk about public space
in a very general way,

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as if it were synonymous with
a physical space that doesn\'t belong to anyone.

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For it to be ours,
we have to endow it with concrete meanings.

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Creating territories of resistance
is creating spaces

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that break into everyday life,
break into public space,

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which is generally
the most controlled space.

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The aesthetic by itself,
that is to say the final result of a work,

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can be very easily appropriated

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and emptied of meaning.

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All that is very easily appropriated

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by the different structures of power,

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and I\'m not thinking
only about the State.

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A lot of contemporary art is even

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more part of the cultural industry now.

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The museums themselves
are buying

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exhibitions that come
from a logic of the cultural industry,

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which somehow
incorporates these emerging practices

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towards something more consumable.

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And they return it to youth
in the form of a symbol.

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Which does not present
any type of threat.

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And that\'s what\'s being done;

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the State, or transnational corporations
are sponsoring festivals

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that decorate the cities.

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Without taking into account

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the basic needs of that neighborhood.

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Beyond whether it is sponsored
by a commercial party or not,

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what matters is whether there is freedom

00:19:31.753 --> 00:19:33.255
to create a discourse.

00:19:33.589 --> 00:19:35.591
The Sistine Chapel was not made for free.

00:19:37.259 --> 00:19:39.344
The big works on walls now

00:19:39.469 --> 00:19:41.638
couldn\'t be done
in the time they are done

00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:44.391
without the conditions
that exist now.

00:19:46.310 --> 00:19:49.605
If one can harness the means
to create something magnificent,

00:19:49.813 --> 00:19:50.898
one has to do it.

00:19:51.732 --> 00:19:54.276
Don\'t just be used
by the system,

00:19:54.318 --> 00:19:55.986
learn to use the system.

00:20:00.616 --> 00:20:02.451
The important thing is that

00:20:02.492 --> 00:20:04.119
what cannot be appropriated so easily,

00:20:04.203 --> 00:20:06.121
and cannot be manipulated as much,

00:20:06.288 --> 00:20:09.124
is the medium in which
these symbols are formed.

00:20:09.499 --> 00:20:11.835
And the way they are produced.

00:20:16.215 --> 00:20:18.508
In other words, the symbol of modernity

00:20:18.592 --> 00:20:21.178
is El Coyote, by Sebastián.

00:20:21.678 --> 00:20:25.307
And that speaks to the aesthetic taste
of the new ruling class.

00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:29.353
And the freaking coyote, look,
it\'s quite ugly, but there it is.

00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:31.396
The new modernity, dammit!

00:20:31.688 --> 00:20:32.940
The synthesis!

00:20:38.862 --> 00:20:41.865
We live in a real war,
with real deaths,

00:20:41.949 --> 00:20:44.701
but also a…
symbolic, aesthetic war,

00:20:44.826 --> 00:20:47.871
where spectacle
is what reigns.

00:20:52.834 --> 00:20:56.463
In Mexico there are murals
that are preserved, cared for,

00:20:56.588 --> 00:20:58.715
become national heritage,

00:20:58.924 --> 00:21:01.343
and others are inconvenient
and are erased.

00:21:01.385 --> 00:21:03.679
The easiest way
to erase a mural

00:21:03.845 --> 00:21:06.348
is to cover it
with a different layer of paint.

00:21:06.974 --> 00:21:10.352
But murals have also been erased
in many other ways.

00:21:10.477 --> 00:21:12.813
From the slight modification
of some murals,

00:21:12.896 --> 00:21:15.148
in other words, an intervention
dictated by the power,

00:21:15.232 --> 00:21:18.110
removing or blocking
certain messages from the wall,

00:21:18.443 --> 00:21:21.822
so that it becomes
more harmless to the powers that be.

00:21:26.451 --> 00:21:29.371
I think muralism
has become more intelligent.

00:21:29.454 --> 00:21:30.497
And more subtle.

00:21:30.622 --> 00:21:33.250
The 43, yes,
that was very smart,

00:21:33.375 --> 00:21:35.085
the freaking mural, at the end,

00:21:35.252 --> 00:21:37.587
it was just bunnies
with a freaking tiger,

00:21:37.671 --> 00:21:38.964
they don\'t mean anything.

00:21:38.964 --> 00:21:41.508
But if you put 43 on it,
now it\'s annoying, right?

00:21:41.591 --> 00:21:43.427
Now it\'s talking about the reality.

00:21:43.677 --> 00:21:47.639
It\'s talking about the thousands
of disappearances in the country.

00:21:50.225 --> 00:21:53.854
Reality has become
raw, and terrible, and harsh.

00:21:54.187 --> 00:21:56.690
So yes, you have to make a work of art...

00:21:56.982 --> 00:21:59.860
that\'s more than posh. Post-posh.

00:22:09.244 --> 00:22:12.831
The case of the insurgency,
in Mexico,

00:22:12.914 --> 00:22:16.293
it\'s very evident,
the way in which, systematically,

00:22:16.418 --> 00:22:19.921
an attempt is being made to render
any type of insurgency invisible.

00:22:21.882 --> 00:22:24.217
I think my work also plays

00:22:24.259 --> 00:22:26.636
a little in that tension.

00:22:26.803 --> 00:22:29.264
Between the inscription and the erasure,

00:22:29.348 --> 00:22:33.060
between the visible,
and what\'s made invisible.

00:22:34.186 --> 00:22:37.522
In that space where
we are all moving,

00:22:37.606 --> 00:22:40.859
and where we are all,
without wanting to,

00:22:41.109 --> 00:22:43.153
doing certain trajectories.

00:22:48.158 --> 00:22:50.619
And those trajectories,
those trails,

00:22:50.744 --> 00:22:52.079
they are the trails of time,

00:22:52.162 --> 00:22:54.664
and trails we may never see.

00:22:54.873 --> 00:22:58.001
And that\'s why I use light,
to make them visible.

00:23:13.016 --> 00:23:15.602
I think since I started doing graffiti,

00:23:15.685 --> 00:23:17.521
I always wondered
what graffiti was.

00:23:17.854 --> 00:23:20.690
And one of the most important
aspects of graffiti for me,

00:23:20.774 --> 00:23:21.733
is the act.

00:23:22.859 --> 00:23:28.156
It\'s this political act
of illegality, of transgression.

00:23:31.034 --> 00:23:33.161
And on the question of the act,
I wondered

00:23:33.328 --> 00:23:37.082
how I could decontextualize graffiti as is,

00:23:37.332 --> 00:23:39.501
and just leave the act itself.

00:23:39.918 --> 00:23:46.258
I like the idea of removing
the graffiti from its state on the wall,

00:23:46.591 --> 00:23:48.427
and encompassing the entire space.

00:23:49.845 --> 00:23:55.350
So it resembles graffiti as an act,

00:23:55.517 --> 00:23:58.812
and takes it to a point
where the medium is not the wall.

00:24:09.656 --> 00:24:13.994
It\'s a way of positioning oneself
in the mix...

00:24:14.786 --> 00:24:20.208
Graffiti…
speaks in front of others,

00:24:20.959 --> 00:24:24.254
certainly in front of all powers

00:24:24.921 --> 00:24:28.341
that are supposedly official or hegemonic.

00:24:28.842 --> 00:24:31.553
The power of government,
of the police,

00:24:31.720 --> 00:24:35.557
the power of
any legal or illegal actor.

00:24:36.391 --> 00:24:40.103
Sometimes these positionings
are made between one group and another,

00:24:40.228 --> 00:24:44.024
between one gang and another,
within the neighborhood itself.

00:24:48.862 --> 00:24:52.574
You start with your \'crew\',
your friends, generally,

00:24:52.657 --> 00:24:53.783
your closest circle,

00:24:53.825 --> 00:24:55.327
that constitute an identity,

00:24:55.368 --> 00:24:57.204
and you form your \'crew\' with your friends.

00:24:58.914 --> 00:25:02.751
The idea of graffiti
belonging to hip-hop,

00:25:02.834 --> 00:25:04.669
is a constructed idea,

00:25:05.128 --> 00:25:10.133
that in the 80s tried to unite
all these cultures.

00:25:10.300 --> 00:25:12.260
However, in reality in Mexico

00:25:12.344 --> 00:25:17.057
graffiti didn\'t appear
in a hip-hop context.

00:25:19.726 --> 00:25:21.937
People who travelled, punks,

00:25:22.229 --> 00:25:24.940
they went to punk events, to Tijuana,

00:25:25.273 --> 00:25:29.027
they started bringing graffiti to Mexico City.

00:25:29.819 --> 00:25:34.658
It was a punk, rock, hardcore vibe,

00:25:34.866 --> 00:25:36.993
and a network began to form.

00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:41.122
We would go to Guadalajara
to a gig, and paint.

00:25:41.414 --> 00:25:43.708
They would come to Mexico City,
and we\'d paint.

00:25:43.875 --> 00:25:46.086
And it was beginning to spread
southwards,

00:25:46.253 --> 00:25:48.380
towards Puebla, towards Oaxaca.

00:25:54.219 --> 00:25:57.138
One of the most important locations
for graffiti I think,

00:25:57.264 --> 00:25:58.056
is Iztapalapa.

00:25:58.139 --> 00:26:02.978
In Iztapalapa, a very strong
graffiti movement was created.

00:26:03.103 --> 00:26:05.397
Many of them had a close
relationship with Neza,

00:26:05.522 --> 00:26:08.692
because Neza and Iztapalapa
are quite close.

00:26:08.817 --> 00:26:13.405
And they\'re both
working class areas,

00:26:13.530 --> 00:26:16.825
and highly marginal places.

00:26:20.662 --> 00:26:25.250
Neza and Iztapalapa
are the two parts of the city

00:26:25.542 --> 00:26:28.503
in which the best graffiti artists
were then produced.

00:26:29.212 --> 00:26:32.799
And Neza stood out then and does now,

00:26:32.924 --> 00:26:35.302
because it was a hotbed.

00:26:35.552 --> 00:26:39.264
And many came
to learn graffiti from the best.

00:26:41.349 --> 00:26:45.770
I came across graffiti
when I had the punk and hardcore band,

00:26:45.895 --> 00:26:51.568
I did believe then that graffiti
was a tool to express something,

00:26:51.735 --> 00:26:53.194
that it was combative.

00:26:58.575 --> 00:27:03.288
At that time, there were no productions,
there were no \'bombings\', maybe some \'drops\'...

00:27:03.830 --> 00:27:06.041
It was tagging, tagging, tagging,

00:27:06.207 --> 00:27:09.127
and the \'throw up\' trend was starting.

00:27:09.586 --> 00:27:11.421
And then the \'bombings\'.

00:27:45.080 --> 00:27:49.042
And I got this idea that
I have to do something with graffiti,

00:27:49.125 --> 00:27:52.837
and we started doing graffiti events,
we started promoting it,

00:27:53.046 --> 00:27:56.049
and our work also
began to speak for itself.

00:28:01.429 --> 00:28:06.434
All these versions or variants
of graffiti genealogies,

00:28:06.518 --> 00:28:09.437
in Mexico City, they intertwine.

00:28:11.106 --> 00:28:13.400
That starts to break this whole rule

00:28:13.483 --> 00:28:16.569
that you had to have
only one crew, forever.

00:28:16.820 --> 00:28:19.280
And I believe that
the biggest difference

00:28:19.406 --> 00:28:22.617
was that,
in the case of graffiti,

00:28:22.826 --> 00:28:28.248
it\'s a matter of your style,
of being in a place,

00:28:28.415 --> 00:28:30.083
that\'s not made for that,

00:28:30.166 --> 00:28:33.837
and usually, that experience

00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:35.797
is what you share with others.

00:28:35.964 --> 00:28:38.466
And these crews had
the most powerful experiences,

00:28:38.550 --> 00:28:41.177
because they made giant \'bombings\',
they got into the subway,

00:28:44.389 --> 00:28:50.937
and I think that CHK, in this sense,
reigned supreme in the city.

00:28:51.479 --> 00:28:53.231
My personal motto is:

00:28:53.273 --> 00:28:55.525
legal or illegal, I don\'t care.

00:28:56.151 --> 00:28:58.528
My mission is to send a message.

00:28:58.570 --> 00:29:01.322
Because it was no longer just about
painting your name on the street,

00:29:01.406 --> 00:29:03.199
but you could also
say something.

00:29:03.992 --> 00:29:06.035
Graffiti is a very powerful tool.

00:29:06.661 --> 00:29:08.455
You can change a person.

00:29:09.414 --> 00:29:14.210
My neighborhood
is full of drugs,

00:29:14.294 --> 00:29:17.130
and every time I see a friend,
I invite them to paint.

00:29:18.548 --> 00:29:23.261
When you draw something
exaggeratedly colorful,

00:29:23.344 --> 00:29:26.848
it changes people\'s vibe.

00:29:27.390 --> 00:29:28.391
I like that.

00:29:28.683 --> 00:29:30.977
It\'s not about them
recognizing me, but...

00:29:31.144 --> 00:29:34.105
that\'s what I like
that my painting causes.

00:29:34.773 --> 00:29:36.649
The illegal one gives you a lot of adrenaline,

00:29:36.775 --> 00:29:39.194
but the legal one gives you
a lot of artistic satisfaction.

00:29:40.028 --> 00:29:41.362
That\'s why I do both.

00:29:48.703 --> 00:29:53.208
One of the changes that has occurred
in this binary structure

00:29:53.333 --> 00:29:56.961
between hegemony and resistance,
in which we\'ve been for many years,

00:29:57.545 --> 00:30:00.799
is that in the young generations
we\'re learning

00:30:01.508 --> 00:30:03.718
that in the fight between

00:30:03.927 --> 00:30:06.012
being included or excluded,

00:30:06.429 --> 00:30:09.432
many are not interested in being included.

00:30:12.268 --> 00:30:15.897
I don\'t like to call it vandalism,
because it\'s not,

00:30:16.064 --> 00:30:18.274
that is, even in legal terms,

00:30:18.483 --> 00:30:20.360
it\'s just a misdemeanor.

00:30:21.444 --> 00:30:22.904
I think I see it as...

00:30:22.946 --> 00:30:26.241
I am giving order to the city,
through what I paint.

00:30:26.908 --> 00:30:31.579
I don\'t see any contribution in
Coca-Cola or Pepsi painted on the street.

00:30:32.038 --> 00:30:35.625
I think that\'s a bigger mess
in public space

00:30:35.792 --> 00:30:37.961
than what I paint.

00:30:48.596 --> 00:30:51.266
As a result of being locked up,

00:30:51.349 --> 00:30:53.977
for some time in jail,
in England,

00:30:54.102 --> 00:30:58.940
I used to draw a lot, my tags,
which led me to jail.

00:31:00.692 --> 00:31:02.360
For some strange reason

00:31:02.443 --> 00:31:05.864
I began to paint words
related to freedom,

00:31:05.989 --> 00:31:08.700
because I was trying to understand
why I was there,

00:31:08.741 --> 00:31:10.410
I mean I knew why I was there,

00:31:10.535 --> 00:31:12.871
but what being in jail meant.

00:31:13.037 --> 00:31:16.457
It was like a diary;
I defined my day through one word.

00:31:16.583 --> 00:31:18.710
I wrote my diary
by means of single words.

00:31:19.502 --> 00:31:21.462
I said
\"Well, this means something to me,

00:31:21.588 --> 00:31:23.756
I want to do it
when I get out of jail\".

00:31:25.550 --> 00:31:27.093
It\'s something very personal.

00:31:27.218 --> 00:31:30.597
I\'m not trying
to convince anyone with this.

00:31:30.763 --> 00:31:34.100
Rather, I do it to reflect on
what\'s happening to me.

00:31:34.225 --> 00:31:37.645
But all these concepts
mean something to someone.

00:31:38.563 --> 00:31:42.984
And I hope that when reading
the words \'solidarity\' or \'unity\',

00:31:43.359 --> 00:31:47.530
they stay for a second in their heads
and the message is effective.

00:31:57.290 --> 00:32:00.543
Yes, there is a dialogue,
the people, not all, but...

00:32:00.793 --> 00:32:03.630
some people read and understand them,
and interact with them.

00:32:04.631 --> 00:32:08.593
Sometimes I like to find words
somewhat deeper or more complicated,

00:32:08.801 --> 00:32:11.804
so that we can expand
our vocabulary,

00:32:11.888 --> 00:32:13.890
because we limit ourselves so much,

00:32:14.057 --> 00:32:15.266
it seems that we use

00:32:15.308 --> 00:32:18.144
50 concepts every day and that\'s it.

00:32:24.108 --> 00:32:27.028
Graffiti made me
travel around town,

00:32:27.195 --> 00:32:29.739
with a camera,
and investigate the city.

00:32:30.156 --> 00:32:34.744
The camera was like a tool to
investigate the context in which I lived,

00:32:34.786 --> 00:32:36.829
and get closer to the Mexican reality,

00:32:36.913 --> 00:32:40.083
so thanks to graffiti
I was able to visit places like Neza,

00:32:40.249 --> 00:32:42.502
distant places, and I was young,

00:32:42.585 --> 00:32:44.879
I was about 14 years old.

00:32:56.766 --> 00:32:59.352
I paint words
depending on how I feel.

00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:02.355
If I\'m falling in love,

00:33:02.438 --> 00:33:04.857
words of love will come out.

00:33:05.108 --> 00:33:07.235
If I\'m in a stage
of social anger,

00:33:07.276 --> 00:33:09.654
social anger concepts
will come out.

00:33:09.696 --> 00:33:13.324
I have painted words
like TRAUMA, TORTURE,

00:33:14.075 --> 00:33:16.411
DISAPPEARANCES,
for example, in a period...

00:33:16.536 --> 00:33:19.747
But for me life\'s a balance, so

00:33:19.831 --> 00:33:25.336
I can\'t just focus on
tough or sad subjects.

00:33:27.922 --> 00:33:32.427
I condemned myself to
keep writing words, so...

00:33:32.635 --> 00:33:35.013
I don\'t know where this is going, really.

00:33:35.138 --> 00:33:38.266
I know that every day
new words are born,

00:33:38.391 --> 00:33:41.477
I write them all over the place,
in notebooks.

00:33:41.811 --> 00:33:43.312
It seems there\'s no end.

00:33:45.648 --> 00:33:48.192
COMMITMENT

00:34:01.289 --> 00:34:05.918
Graffiti artists, somewhat aware of
that impossibility

00:34:06.169 --> 00:34:08.963
to define that fixed shape of the city,

00:34:09.172 --> 00:34:10.548
play on the ephemeral.

00:34:11.049 --> 00:34:12.675
And at the same time,

00:34:12.759 --> 00:34:15.303
graffiti is airtight,

00:34:15.970 --> 00:34:19.015
it\'s cryptic, it\'s anonymous.

00:34:20.892 --> 00:34:22.810
Most of the graffiti

00:34:22.894 --> 00:34:28.566
expresses a collective sense,
groups, gangs,

00:34:30.151 --> 00:34:33.738
it establishes a territorial mark,

00:34:34.155 --> 00:34:39.577
and at the same time it\'s a border
of understanding, of dialogue.

00:34:40.328 --> 00:34:44.332
Someone is saying:
\"I don\'t want to talk to you\".

00:34:47.085 --> 00:34:51.756
That graffiti, which curiously
was produced in the north side,

00:34:52.965 --> 00:34:57.220
by a group of high school boys

00:34:57.512 --> 00:35:01.182
in San Diego,
and who were discriminated against

00:35:02.517 --> 00:35:05.311
due to their various ethnicities,
including Mexican-Americans.

00:35:06.771 --> 00:35:11.234
And they called them \'wetback\'.

00:35:11.651 --> 00:35:13.402
They\'re the \'beaners\'.

00:35:13.778 --> 00:35:17.740
The ones who don\'t deserve to participate
in this youth movement, which is graffiti,

00:35:17.907 --> 00:35:20.201
because it\'s just for gringos, right?

00:35:20.827 --> 00:35:24.080
So, in this context,

00:35:24.831 --> 00:35:26.582
this group of Tijuana boys,

00:35:26.791 --> 00:35:30.670
thought of engaging in...

00:35:30.795 --> 00:35:32.880
representations of youth,

00:35:33.214 --> 00:35:38.594
in San Diego, with an acronym
alluding to a phrase in Spanish,

00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:40.388
that says \'Hecho en Mexico\',

00:35:41.472 --> 00:35:42.849
H.E.M.

00:35:55.987 --> 00:35:58.197
The task, every day, was

00:35:58.281 --> 00:36:01.242
to have graffiti for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

00:36:14.589 --> 00:36:18.426
It\'s not so much about drawing \'charros\',

00:36:18.551 --> 00:36:20.636
or the quetzalcóatl,
or that kind of thing,

00:36:20.761 --> 00:36:24.599
it\'s more about
a certain need to belong.

00:36:36.694 --> 00:36:39.989
I remember that as a child
my parents and I used to pass by,

00:36:40.573 --> 00:36:43.534
and by my house there was
a billboard of a brewing company,

00:36:43.659 --> 00:36:46.704
and one day we passed by
and it said \"HEM kills\".

00:36:48.206 --> 00:36:50.416
I remember my parents saw it and said

00:36:50.499 --> 00:36:52.960
\"Look at those awful scribbles over there.\"

00:36:53.002 --> 00:36:56.714
But I thought internally:
\"No, that\'s pretty cool, it\'s amazing.\"

00:36:57.965 --> 00:37:01.510
Initially, only people from Tijuana
could belong to the crew.

00:37:01.677 --> 00:37:03.971
We didn\'t want anyone in the crew
who didn\'t do vandalism,

00:37:04.096 --> 00:37:05.932
because if you were into legal graffiti,

00:37:06.015 --> 00:37:08.017
if you painted legal, beautiful graffiti,

00:37:08.059 --> 00:37:09.936
our crew wasn\'t really interested in you.

00:37:11.771 --> 00:37:14.899
The idea was to take a bus,
get off at one point,

00:37:15.107 --> 00:37:18.194
and walk from there
back to the other end.

00:37:18.319 --> 00:37:21.072
And some members of the group
were from other parts.

00:37:31.374 --> 00:37:32.959
That was the sort of coming and going,

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:34.502
both for work and for graffiti,

00:37:34.669 --> 00:37:36.420
I think that was good, because

00:37:36.504 --> 00:37:38.256
we were able
to get our hands on the paint.

00:37:39.340 --> 00:37:43.135
It is tremendously powerful
for this group

00:37:43.678 --> 00:37:46.847
to get together, get organized,
first in San Diego,

00:37:47.348 --> 00:37:49.976
and then afterwards,
back in Tijuana,

00:37:50.059 --> 00:37:51.978
to continue spreading this culture.

00:38:00.444 --> 00:38:02.154
We\'d cross into San Diego,

00:38:02.363 --> 00:38:04.615
and go to stores like Target,

00:38:04.699 --> 00:38:09.578
we\'d go in, fill our backpacks with paint,
and go out, so it was...

00:38:09.787 --> 00:38:12.999
going there, stealing the paint,
painting on the freeways,

00:38:13.124 --> 00:38:15.960
until 7 or 8 PM,
and it would get dark,

00:38:16.043 --> 00:38:17.670
especially in the winter,

00:38:18.087 --> 00:38:19.422
going out to paint the freeways,

00:38:19.505 --> 00:38:21.590
and returning to Tijuana the next day.

00:38:22.300 --> 00:38:29.181
These collectives, H.E.M. and others,
were interested in hard infrastructure

00:38:29.557 --> 00:38:34.562
of the city, that is, roads, bridges,

00:38:35.396 --> 00:38:37.273
the areas where messages circulated,

00:38:37.398 --> 00:38:38.566
at the end of the day.

00:38:38.941 --> 00:38:42.737
We knew very well
where we wanted to paint,

00:38:43.195 --> 00:38:45.448
patrols, public offices,

00:38:45.573 --> 00:38:47.116
where we\'d leave a mark,

00:38:47.199 --> 00:38:49.118
so they had to turn to us,

00:38:49.243 --> 00:38:51.162
actually I remember my brother Marcos

00:38:51.287 --> 00:38:53.080
once told me...

00:38:53.456 --> 00:38:54.582
that he had gone to Playas,

00:38:54.623 --> 00:38:56.709
and that he heard
one of the delegates there,

00:38:56.792 --> 00:38:59.253
saying they were looking
for me and Kamel.

00:39:14.268 --> 00:39:18.314
We have to keep operating
in the logic of graffiti as a metaphor,

00:39:18.439 --> 00:39:22.443
trying to find ways
in which an act becomes possible.

00:39:22.985 --> 00:39:24.362
To reach the top.

00:39:24.737 --> 00:39:26.155
To put the \'trepe\' (climb).

00:39:28.032 --> 00:39:32.244
This action of climbing onto a roof,
or a billboard.

00:39:33.287 --> 00:39:35.706
And a guy holds you from your feet,

00:39:35.790 --> 00:39:37.208
and you scribble

00:39:37.333 --> 00:39:39.085
while he is moving you through it.

00:39:39.335 --> 00:39:40.669
Or with ropes.

00:39:41.379 --> 00:39:44.256
That\'s…
totally from Tijuana.

00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:50.471
Perhaps the most daring act
to this day,

00:39:50.721 --> 00:39:53.015
in terms of graffiti production,

00:39:53.099 --> 00:39:54.392
is a \'trepe\'.

00:39:55.351 --> 00:39:59.730
The \'trepe\' carried out by
Sueño (Dream) and Kenos, who tagged

00:39:59.897 --> 00:40:07.071
the ledge of the port of entry
to San Diego.

00:40:08.280 --> 00:40:15.079
Sueño went up and scribbled,
he wrote \"Sueño\", \"Kenos\", and the crew.

00:40:15.913 --> 00:40:18.082
I think that\'s like...

00:40:18.207 --> 00:40:21.001
like a trophy for the crew, to say:

00:40:21.127 --> 00:40:25.548
\"We scribbled
such an important place for them,

00:40:26.549 --> 00:40:29.301
with the Hecho en Mexico theme\".

00:40:44.733 --> 00:40:47.736
The border is not just the wall.

00:40:48.654 --> 00:40:50.781
All of Mexico is a border country.

00:40:50.906 --> 00:40:55.327
One can find
insurmountable barriers,

00:40:55.536 --> 00:40:57.663
impassable places,

00:40:57.872 --> 00:41:00.040
it\'s the border
not only of Mexico,

00:41:00.082 --> 00:41:02.084
but between Latin America
and the United States.

00:41:02.209 --> 00:41:05.004
Many Central Americans,
or from other countries,

00:41:05.171 --> 00:41:09.341
have to walk through it
to get to the United States.

00:41:09.550 --> 00:41:12.178
It\'s a border
not only with the United States,

00:41:12.344 --> 00:41:15.639
but with the borders
of the human essence, of dignity.

00:41:19.560 --> 00:41:21.645
Border policies

00:41:21.896 --> 00:41:24.440
have been transforming this possibility

00:41:24.565 --> 00:41:27.610
to stand on the other side,
to transmigrate.

00:41:34.450 --> 00:41:38.954
The border, the fence itself,
is a place strongly marked

00:41:39.330 --> 00:41:42.833
by stories about memory.

00:41:43.125 --> 00:41:45.711
Sometimes, in a sentence,
there\'s a life story.

00:41:46.003 --> 00:41:51.217
\"Here I was, I wanted to cross\",
\"This is the fourth time I\'ve tried\",

00:41:51.509 --> 00:41:55.387
\"Here I had a son\",
\"Here my brother died.\"

00:41:57.139 --> 00:41:59.225
For me the wall cannot be an ornament.

00:41:59.308 --> 00:42:01.769
I experience it closely,
I\'ve grown up with the wall,

00:42:01.977 --> 00:42:04.271
And I don\'t like it being there in the city

00:42:04.355 --> 00:42:06.190
I would like it not to be there.

00:42:07.775 --> 00:42:09.318
There are tactics about the wall

00:42:09.401 --> 00:42:11.195
there are tricks, moves,

00:42:11.278 --> 00:42:14.698
there are ways to subvert this power fantasy

00:42:14.907 --> 00:42:16.534
that seeks to build walls.

00:42:28.879 --> 00:42:32.049
For the same reason that Tijuana
is in a rather forgotten corner,

00:42:32.132 --> 00:42:34.468
you don\'t feel part of the rest of Mexico,

00:42:34.635 --> 00:42:35.803
at a historical level,

00:42:36.095 --> 00:42:38.472
nor do you
feel part of the United States,

00:42:38.514 --> 00:42:40.391
because they really
don\'t want you there.

00:42:46.730 --> 00:42:50.734
It\'s wanting to show
this sort of \'Mexicanness\', maybe,

00:42:50.943 --> 00:42:52.403
we are neither from here nor there,

00:42:52.486 --> 00:42:53.904
but we are very Mexican.

00:43:54.965 --> 00:43:57.259
Nowadays,
anyone can be Tijuanense,

00:43:57.343 --> 00:43:58.969
anyone coming from anywhere,

00:43:59.094 --> 00:44:00.971
and that is socially accepted.

00:44:01.388 --> 00:44:03.641
You can say \"I\'m from Tijuana, I\'m Tijuanense\",

00:44:03.724 --> 00:44:05.476
and they ask you \"But where were you born?\",

00:44:05.559 --> 00:44:08.312
\"I was born in Guadalajara\",
\"I was born in El Salvador\",

00:44:08.395 --> 00:44:09.938
and we are all Tijuanenses.

00:44:52.815 --> 00:44:55.275
So many stories
that couldn\'t become reality,

00:44:55.317 --> 00:44:57.778
and have been transformed
to survive.

00:44:59.780 --> 00:45:03.367
Most of the people I paint
are imaginary.

00:45:03.659 --> 00:45:06.578
But the stories I paint,
most are true.

00:45:06.662 --> 00:45:08.872
I mean, sometimes
I\'ve sat down with someone to talk,

00:45:08.997 --> 00:45:12.376
sometimes they\'ve allowed me to interview them,
even take pictures of them,

00:45:12.584 --> 00:45:16.630
and sometimes I feel the need
to tell that person\'s story.

00:45:26.432 --> 00:45:30.853
I am one of the artists known on the border,
if not the only one,

00:45:31.228 --> 00:45:33.021
for painting nostalgia.

00:45:34.815 --> 00:45:38.444
Everybody remembers a place
to which they no longer belong,

00:45:38.569 --> 00:45:41.238
so we live in a city
that lives from memory.

00:45:45.993 --> 00:45:48.746
I think I was always
distant from graffiti,

00:45:48.996 --> 00:45:53.083
but I always liked it...
I liked the reason why people went out to paint.

00:45:53.625 --> 00:45:56.044
And that territorial dispute

00:45:56.086 --> 00:45:57.379
that I understood later,

00:45:57.463 --> 00:45:59.423
when I started painting on the street,

00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:01.925
I think I became acquainted with it in Tijuana.

00:46:10.726 --> 00:46:13.395
My work, and my art,

00:46:13.729 --> 00:46:15.939
even my worldview of art,

00:46:16.106 --> 00:46:18.776
is influenced by
the daily life of the border.

00:46:19.151 --> 00:46:22.070
I like to walk,
I like to talk with people,

00:46:22.196 --> 00:46:25.991
and I like knowing that the place where I am
is different every day.

00:46:34.374 --> 00:46:37.878
That feedback
with the community,

00:46:38.003 --> 00:46:40.756
is very interesting,
totally enriching,

00:46:40.798 --> 00:46:42.883
and that never happens in a gallery.

00:46:43.884 --> 00:46:47.012
In the neighborhood, people tell you
\"Your painting sucks!\"

00:46:47.095 --> 00:46:49.681
or \"That\'s freaking good, thanks!\",

00:46:49.890 --> 00:46:52.768
You\'re exposed,
you can\'t hide.

00:46:53.018 --> 00:46:56.480
There is no curatorial text
that tells you what you have to read.

00:46:57.981 --> 00:47:01.777
I have a bigger commitment
to work with the community, because...

00:47:02.486 --> 00:47:05.030
it\'s the same people
who see it all day.

00:47:05.239 --> 00:47:10.118
Even if some family
lends me the front of their house to paint,

00:47:10.369 --> 00:47:13.288
I want it to have
something to do with them,

00:47:13.413 --> 00:47:16.291
to tell something
that makes them feel important,

00:47:16.416 --> 00:47:18.335
because they are part of the mural.

00:47:19.336 --> 00:47:20.921
And downtown is the opposite.

00:47:21.046 --> 00:47:24.383
Downtown, so many things
are happening and coexisting all the time,

00:47:24.925 --> 00:47:28.804
that allow me to explore things
I don\'t have to have a commitment to,

00:47:28.929 --> 00:47:31.390
I don\'t have to feel
attached to someone.

00:47:37.604 --> 00:47:39.982
When people ask me
\"Why \'Norte\' (North)?\"

00:47:40.274 --> 00:47:42.568
I tell them
I\'m from the north of Mexico,

00:47:42.693 --> 00:47:45.404
and it\'s like...
an easy answer.

00:47:45.946 --> 00:47:48.448
Although for me,
actually, it\'s about being a guide,

00:47:48.574 --> 00:47:51.785
I like it to mean
the north of Latin America.

00:47:53.829 --> 00:47:57.583
I\'m prouder to live in the border today
than 10 years ago.

00:47:58.125 --> 00:48:02.254
So it\'s a flag that I want to carry,
and be a frontier artist.

00:48:05.966 --> 00:48:07.259
I\'m from the border.

00:48:07.509 --> 00:48:09.303
My son is from the border.

00:48:09.428 --> 00:48:10.596
My life is on the frontier,

00:48:10.721 --> 00:48:13.891
and therefore,
my art is also border.

00:48:32.492 --> 00:48:36.121
In this precarious world of scarce places,

00:48:36.288 --> 00:48:40.542
where migrants don\'t fit,
young people don\'t fit,

00:48:40.751 --> 00:48:43.503
more and more,

00:48:43.629 --> 00:48:46.131
an area is being built, where

00:48:46.214 --> 00:48:49.551
the main game is not about being included,

00:48:49.676 --> 00:48:54.181
but playing by one\'s own rules.

00:49:08.528 --> 00:49:11.156
Almost everything that is happening
in the contemporary world

00:49:11.239 --> 00:49:14.284
is the result of crossings of cultures,

00:49:14.534 --> 00:49:17.537
in which we have to elaborate
forms of coexistence.

00:49:19.289 --> 00:49:22.209
Now we have to play
an independent role,

00:49:22.292 --> 00:49:25.712
where you decide what you want to say
in a public space.

00:49:26.755 --> 00:49:29.883
You need to take responsibility for things too.

00:49:29.967 --> 00:49:33.804
You can\'t just pass
the baton to people,

00:49:34.262 --> 00:49:37.057
and not assume
that you have a responsibility too,

00:49:37.182 --> 00:49:41.645
to break those borders
that do not exist.

00:49:43.313 --> 00:49:47.067
I believe that the only thing
we can do as citizens,

00:49:47.192 --> 00:49:50.153
is to say something in that space
to make us remember

00:49:50.320 --> 00:49:54.074
that this is the wall
that limits us and conditions us.

00:49:54.241 --> 00:49:55.492
And we have to use it,

00:49:55.617 --> 00:49:58.370
we have the right
to use that space to say something.

00:50:02.082 --> 00:50:04.376
Your pieces must have
your personality.

00:50:05.127 --> 00:50:06.962
It\'s like a self-portrait.

00:50:07.254 --> 00:50:09.339
When I look at what you paint

00:50:10.215 --> 00:50:13.427
it has to have something that makes sense
with where you live,

00:50:13.802 --> 00:50:14.970
and how you are.

00:50:17.180 --> 00:50:18.807
I believe that painting in the street,

00:50:18.849 --> 00:50:21.435
or painting independently
and self-organized,

00:50:21.560 --> 00:50:24.021
gives you the freedom
to express whatever you want.

00:50:24.396 --> 00:50:27.816
As long as it\'s genuine,
and comes from yourself.

00:50:28.316 --> 00:50:30.485
It has transformative possibilities.

00:50:35.949 --> 00:50:38.243
It\'s a utensil, a tool.

00:50:38.493 --> 00:50:41.121
It can help you approach
a lot of young people

00:50:41.163 --> 00:50:44.416
who are very interested
in seeing urban expressions.

00:50:44.708 --> 00:50:48.587
And I believe that
the words are the means,

00:50:48.670 --> 00:50:52.299
the medium that can bring people closer
to what is written on the street.

00:50:54.051 --> 00:50:56.803
For me,
the key aspect of graffiti,

00:50:57.012 --> 00:51:02.434
is this political act of illegality,
of transgression.

00:51:04.644 --> 00:51:07.272
Everything we see,
everything that impresses us,

00:51:07.355 --> 00:51:08.940
all our experiences,

00:51:09.316 --> 00:51:13.153
are traces that remain in our psyche,

00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:15.947
in our collective imagination.

00:51:17.240 --> 00:51:20.535
And we are made
through those traces.

00:51:20.744 --> 00:51:22.579
We are that texture.