COMUNA 13 OFICIAL SCRIPT

As a sign of resistance and social union, the Comuna 13 appears today as a territory
that faced violence but found tools in art, culture and social work for historical
memory, capable of awakening sensations around memory, peace, and truth. The
Comuna 13 highlights many of the distinctive features of Medellin, including its strength,
its ability to overcome adversity, the need to share with others joyfully, and the
know-how to use entrepreneurship and creativity to proudly survive and believe in a
transformation for the future.

the Comuna 13 limits to the north with Comuna 7 to the east, the bordering comuna is La
América; to the south-east it connects with the village of Altavista, and to the west with
San Cristóbal, both places’ roads connect with the Cauca river and Santa Fe de Antioquia.

The first settlements in the Comuna 13 were the result of the unregulated occupation
of the territory due to land invasions. The urbanization process of the comuna took
place at the beginning of the 20th century when peasants from different regions of the
department settled in the lower parts of the mountain towards the west. The first
migrants came mostly from Urabá and Chocó, victims of violent displacement in those
regions. They settled in the highest parts of the hill, so the Comuna 13 became an area
with a high presence of Afro-descendant community.

Inhabitants tell that El Salado is one of the oldest neighborhoods, so called due to the
existence of salt water and clay fountains used by potters, who lived from the
production and sale of clay products in other areas of the city.

The massive invasion of the territory led to a conformation without planning regulations
and precarious social and economic conditions of the population. The different periods of
war that have scarred the country, combined with the forced displacement and social and
economic abandonment of the State, contributed to increase the Comuna 13’s population
and to incorporate their own particular war.

The absence of State in territories of informal settlements such as the Comuna 13,
multiplied the creation of illegal groups such as combos, guerrillas, criminal gangs
and autodefensas groups. The last ones created as groups of mercenaries at the service of
the highest bidder(mejor postor) and at a moment also to the service of drug trafficking,
this groups, after the 90s, started to be known as paramilitaries.
Given that drug trafficking set a business model that benefited illegal groups, violence
spread throughout Medellín with the intention of controlling the territory, a dynamic
framed in monitoring connections from the neighborhoods with Chocó and Urabá region
and the way to get to the sea as a corridor for drugs, goods and weapons trafficking.

Therefore during the 80s and 90s the lack of opportunities in educational, cultural and
social spheres, combined with the absence of the State, led children and young people
become the first target of illegal groups to make them part of their ranks and led
autodefensas groups to take control of the territory; thus, groups took advantage of the
circumstances of a country with a greater conflict.

In the 90’s the paramilitary army they helped to track and kill to Pablo Escobar in a join
operation between the US and the Colombian Government, then they took over the
cocaine business, until now. In 1999, the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defence
Forces of Colombia (AUC) initiated an offensive to remove the left-wing armed groups
from Comuna 13. They wanted to control the neighbourhood for the import and export of
weapons and cocaine.

At the early 2000s, express kidnappings became the main fund-raising strategy of the
guerrillas settled in the territory, it was at that time that the urban war got more intense.

The Orion Operation was considered a victory for the Public Force, despite the fact that
the armed conflict in the Comuna 13 lasted longer since Cacique Nutibara Bloc took the
place left by guerrillas and controled the territory until now.

Comuna 13’s tranformation

Right now despite the conflict Comuna 13 is a community that has been transformed
through improved accessibility, investment, street art and community solidarity,
overcoming its difficult past and now attracts tourist from all around the world who come
to view the amazing graffiti. The walls of Comuna 13 have become a canvas to describe its
difficult past, bringing hope to the residents, and recent a steady stream of visitors. Art
and music are used as vehicles for political and creative expression, and as a means of
expressing local anger and discontent with the violence that occurred in 2002. Today, the
Comuna 13 routes are projected as references of street art in the world and invite artists
of different nationalities to participate in collective creations.

Today in Comuna 13, local’s quality of life has changed for the better and they are no
longer afraid to leave their homes and vendors are selling, among many other delicious
dishes.Graffiti, art, music and state investment in infrastructure have helped achieve a
sense of pride and reconciliation in a neighbourhood and hip-hop music is a sign of
resistance and a place for kids to focus their energy outside of illegal and gang activities.
Chota, Jomag and the other graffitiers

Chota is one of Medellin´s most renowned urban artist known for his impact graffiti.
Before with all the violence, one´s inspiration was to belong to an illegal armed group, to
live uniformed in that way, to have the biggest weapons and to be the most violent. but in
the process of growing up, you begin to analyze what´s going on and after they started to
focus on making art, and became in leaders, and multipliers of art and coexistence in their
communities. Now, from the moment a child wake up, they have a graffiti, they have a
singer, a dancer or an example to turn to and a reason to continue on.

Chota started to paint with a group of friends in 2008 as they wanted to see a change in
their neighborhood. They started doing Christmas arts in December, that´s how it all
started. Afterward graffiti get into an artist expression instead of vandalism, when the
graffitiers understood that Graffiti that they express on those walls that left a message,
from that moment, they understood that they had to be accepted by their same
community and everybody else.

Their progression in art has been more self taugh, in their own words his knowledge
comes from the university of the streets, self learned, throughout their development, and
little by little they improved; and now more than anything they paint the stories of their
neighborhood. His designs are creative - alternatives, he always looks to create faces
outside of the norm, within a face, he adds nature to it and therefore he tells his story. On
one side you can see and eye with red stain, and in the other side a green stain, the red is
negativism and the green is hope.

Jomag

Muralism goes beyond painting in the room or in the living room. Before Muralism was
banned, it was forbidden to paint graffiti and artists wore masks, went out to paint in the
evening, now there are academies that paint in the streets and study the subject in the
university. They now paint faces of Gabo, Mujica, Martin Luther King. The one who paints
must face the rejection of the new, one must confront to experiment with the reactions of
the people. The graffiti all the time are influencing the fashion.

Loto Flower and Phenix Bird´s Graffitie

In 2009, an American congressman visiting the comuna was surprised by what was
happening there in terms of social and cultural movements, and proposed to
contribute to the work with in-kind donations. In response, Daniel "El Perro" requested as
many aerosol cans as possible in order to paint more graffiti in the sector. A few months
later, "Mi Sangre" Foundation created by the singer Juanes, decided to invite another
senator from the United States to show him the development of cultural and artistic
activities of the Comuna 13, Daniel "El Perro" and Jeihhco Castaño proposed a tour of the
graffiti made since the visit of the previous congressman. This is how the tours around the
comuna were born. Graffiti allied with architecture as a tool for social development.

After years of conflict, the Comuna 13 resurfaced thanks to population resistance

against violence that, by means of the search of a social transformation through art
and culture, managed to revive the spirit of the neighborhood and to face years of
marginalization they were submitted to. The Comuna 13 is one of the examples of
the resurgence of Medellín, and today represents a place of meeting and cultural
proposals that invites to walk its streets, to appreciate its colors and to know the
harshness of the conflict and understand the history and rebirth of the city.

Escalators

Here there have been several important projects initiated by the state over recent years
who have helped improve the way of life for locals, and to reduce the level of crime, Like
the metro cable car system opened as an extension of the already vital metro and the
escalators, that allowed residents better access to various parts of the neighborhood. So
The 357 stairs that used to take approximately 35 minutes to climb, right now, the same
trip via escalators takes only 6 minutes. Nearly 12,000 million pesos (almost four million
euros) were invested in the project, which directly benefits about 20,000 people out of
the approximately 150,000 that inhabit the comuna. today the escalators are a sample
of urban innovation around the world to be an alternative mobility city that contributed to
the welfare of an area impacted by violence.