ABSTRACT
The sculpture of nineteenth-century war hero, General Manuel Baquedano, located in a plaza in central Santiago, has historically been a key neuralgic point for social gathering and protest. Since the Social Outbreak in October 2019, which fought against deep entrenched socioeconomic inequality, the statue of Baquedano became a contested political arena, which was, on the one hand, constantly targeted by the protestors and, on the other hand, restored by the authorities.
The monument to Baquedano was once a symbol of Lefebvre's “representation of space,” and was an imposed artefact of governmentality that aimed to control and regulate social practice. It was framed by Smith's Authorised Heritage Discourse. Conversely, iconoclast performances are framed in what Lefebvre defined as “representational space” which asserts, negotiates and legitimises claims for memory, recognition, and representation. These interventions rather than an attempt to exclude “others” through the erasure and modification or destruction of heritage corresponded to the expression of asymmetric memories within the official heritage, a claim for participating in the city and its symbols.
This chapter examines the different aesthetic interventions of the monument to Baquedano and the political discourses associated with them, from the beginning of the Social Outbreak on 18 October 2019 to the removal of the monument on 12 March 2021. It aims to reflect on the concept of heritage construction (and destruction) as a discursive and performative process, and how it reflects social meanings, relations and entities as well as how it constitutes and governs them. By analysing the struggles between different political projections on space, which materialise synchronously in monuments, this chapter seeks to provide insight into the role of heritage in contexts of political instability and social discontent.
Primary research for this chapter included an archival search of newspapers, official statements and broadcasted video to investigate the perspective of both protestors and the government over the protests at Baquedano Square. The protests at, about and around the Baquedano statue, as well as the many other protests about monuments around the globe, can be considered as legitimate acts of reappropriation, a demand for recognition, critical participation and visibility in the creation of the city. They are a claim by marginalised groups for the right to the city and their place and recognition in society.
