Cazuca Blurred-Hood
This project aims to make a map of Cazuca which is a border neighbourhood between Soacha and the Colombian capital, Bogotá. It has been inhabited and populated mainly by people who migrated from different places of the country to the capital looking for a better way of living. It is a neighbourhood created by the effect of the violence and the extreme poverty that has hit the history of Colombia. It’s a blurred area of the maps
The presence of paramilitaries has become more visible in the last 8 years. These illegal groups have the control of the area, sending drugs and weapons to the capital. Force recruitment of young people, selective murders, and a curfew imposed by them make this area hard to reach for legal entities. Between 2010 and 2013 murders in Cazuca rose to a 171 percent (Ibid, 2014). This is why it’s a blurred area in the maps. So “Cazucá Blurred-hood” is an initiative that aims to guide and motivate young “cazuqueños” to map and shape their blurred neighbourhood.
The news talk about Cazuca as one of the biggest drug zone’s in Colombia, as one of the most dangerous, but don’t talk about the people from there, and there is more good than bad people. They don’t show the problem of Cazuca as a result of the lack of infrastructure as roads, housing or just even the presence of governmental entities. They show this place as dangerous as it is because of the people who live there.
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“Cazuca Blurred-Hood” it is the voice of the people. It is an independent space that shows how the people lives, represent and appropriate the neighbourhood. It is a collaborative project, which aims to be an inclusive and ongoing source of information. Some young people from Cazuca are working in this project taking photographs and making videos. These are the main sources to collect information to shape this blurred neighbourhood. A website it been built to spread the information collected. This is a low budget project because of the need to be accessible for people with low income.
This project it is a methodology of mapping, which includes the relations, the representations, and the emotions that people have of this place. It is recognition of the space and the people living there. It is a reflexion about the violence and security that can give some strategies to make this a safer place. In other words “Cazuca Blurred-Hood” visualize what is going on in Cazuca, it shows where it is dangerous or safe, it reveals how there are more good people than bad guys. And also it is an opportunity and space of expression for the “Cazuqueños”.
