Archiving the city from the favelas: Artistic practices and the production of urban memory

Abstract

This article examines how practices emerging from Rio de Janeiro’s favelas con tribute to the production of urban memory by contesting the ways in which the city is narrated and remembered. Drawing on archival studies, memory studies, Black studies, and visual culture, it argues that archiving constitutes a social prac tice that extends beyond institutional spaces of preservation and also manifests itself through the inscription of collective experiences in urban space. Method ologically, the article combines the analysis of images, artworks, artistic interven tions, and memory initiatives developed in different favelas of Rio de Janeiro. By examining productions such as Girl from Rio, works by Maxwell Alexandre and Al lan Weber, and the Memorial to the Victims of the Jacarezinho Massacre, it pro poses understanding the city as an archival infrastructure whose spaces and ma terialities participate in struggles over the production and persistence of memory. These practices constitute ways of archiving the city from the favelas, affirming the presence of subjects, territories, and events historically subjected to erasure.