Expeditions to Puerto Piojo

EXPEDITIONS TO PUERTO PIOJO
Members: The current group is composed of Carolina Andreetti, Juliana Ceci, Carlos Gradin, and Sonia Neuburger. From 2014 to 2018, Pablo Caracuel was also a member.
Year of Creation: 2014 – Present
Location: Río de la Plata shoreline in Dock Sud, Avellaneda, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Contact: [email protected]
Web: https://puertopiojo.com.ar
https://expedicionesapuertopiojo.wordpress.com
Instagram: @expedicionesapuertopiojo

Description, Concept, Objectives

Expeditions to Puerto Piojo takes as its artistic site of practice the beach known as Puerto Piojo, located on the Dock Sud shoreline. Since 2014, we have been delving into its history—a site nearly lost and forgotten by new generations and the surrounding community. Adjacent to the mouth of the Riachuelo River, this beach was once a vibrant recreational area for locals, from the early 20th century until shortly after the 1976 military coup, when access was prohibited.

Through immersive engagement with the territory, we aim to question the complex relationship between urban dwellers and their waterfronts, fostering new ways to imagine and inhabit them. We have developed a platform of both physical and virtual tools: open expeditions for the community, interdisciplinary encounters with illustrators, biologists, and naturalists to study and share local flora, fauna, geology, and tides’ debris. We produce photographic, sound, and audiovisual archives, and collect family photographs and personal testimonies.

Activities

Our project has sustained nearly a decade of continuous, self-managed activity. We embrace a situated artistic practice in a territory deeply marked by collective memory and cultural, social, and economic processes. In 2022, with the Dock Sud Port Management Consortium, we installed signage reinstating Puerto Piojo’s presence on official public maps—an event accompanied by residents and public and private institutions.

We have exhibited at Fundación Proa, EAC Montevideo, Centro Cultural Conti, CC Recoleta, and others. We nurture networks and alliances with spaces such as Club de Regatas Brown and, through the Network of Puerto Piojo Ports in the World, with the Museo del Puerto de Ing. White. Our Puerto Piojo Museum is now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bahía Blanca. We organized the 1st Experimental Riverside Congress at the Isla Maciel Community Museum, which continues in itinerant form. In 2023, we hosted the PUERTO PIOJO FORUM during the II International Art+Science Congress: The Waters. We use fanzines, maps, postcards, and a virtual reality film to share our work.

Challenges

Puerto Piojo is within the jurisdiction of the Dock Sud Port and the petrochemical hub. Entry must be pre-approved by the Port Management Consortium. Often, access is denied due to activity in the area.

Future Directions

Our current project, Puerto Piojo 2100 / Puerto Piojo Future, invites us to imagine what lies ahead.
What will the beach look like once the oil-based economy comes to an end?
How will these landscapes be reinhabited?
What uses might emerge?
Who will shape Puerto Piojo’s post-industrial future?
For now, we are engaging in acts of speculative imagination.

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