Redescribing The Project of the Ground: A Photographic Essay

Abstract

This photographic essay and accompanying text continue an effort to document and update the Jardim São Francisco housing complex (Demetre Anastassakis, São Paulo), developed in the late 1980s, with a particular interest in the spatial implications of that collective housing experience. Unlike the spatial products imposed by hegemonic thinking — dictated by the hypercommodification and standardization of the 'urban economy' — this collective experience offers an alternative spatial proposition, capable of questioning the dominant practices and ideologies. It was developed based on the engagement with housing struggle movements and generated friction conditions with those hegemonic spatialities, standing out from violent development processes and seeking alternatives. Interpreted as manifestations of resistance, they help to make legible ways of life that are already among us and have gained relevance in recent investigative exercises. In addition to the documentation effort, the photographic essay presented here, carried out in 2021, gives support to an exercise of redescription, as proposed by AbdouMaliq Simone and Edgar Pieterse (2017), in light of the discussion of Progetto di suolo, by Bernardo Secchi (1986). By questioning and opposing the dominant understanding of the space of dwelling, the photographic essay, an exercise of redescription, reveals aspects of urban life’s spatiality that seem to have disappeared, local vitalities that were turned invisible by an apparent decline. Thus, this documentation intends to give visibility to a perspective that allows us to disarm our perception, offering a framework for critical reflection. We indicate it as an incubator for counter-hegemonic spatialities, a resource for the discipline of Architecture and Urbanism, and a reference for decision-making and action processes that seek an alternative to spatial homogenization.