Colours and contrasts of Comuna 13

Comuna 13 in Medellín, Colombia, grew like so many working class neighborhoods in Latin America, advancing with precarious constructions on the land of the highlands. It was an area historically marginalized by poverty, guerrilla presence and drug trafficking. 

After the devastating military operation known as Operation Orion in 2002, paramilitary groups dominated the area and crime continued, leaving terror and victims in its wake.

After these terrible events, initiatives by young people from the neighborhood, such as the Casa Kolacho cultural center, based on ideas of peace, cultural identity and memory, managed to promote fundamental transformations through hip hop culture in its different manifestations such as DJ, graffiti, music and break dance.

Then the state action was added, with the aim of turning the neighborhood into a place of interest for social tourism, adding infrastructure (the most publicized, the escalators project, known as the only ones in the world installed in a marginal neighborhood), logistics and dissemination. 

Today the place has been profoundly transformed: open-air art galleries, colorful, graffiti, brands, music, cafes and tourists coexist (coexist?) with the neighbors of the neighborhood. But even so, complex realities survive, many of them the product of this same transformation, which affects the normal life of the inhabitants, and the social problems are far from being overcome.