Todo Estaba Previsto The term desire line is defined in landscape architecture as, “an unplanned route or path (such as one worn into a grassy surface by repeated foot traffic) that is used by pedestrians in preference to or in the absence of a designated alternative (such as a paved pathway).” It represents the shortest distance between two points. Those points, in turn, are representative of the end goal of desire: to enter into and/or engage with a specific location in space. The path itself, on the other hand, constitutes a tangible visual metaphor for forgotten pasts and potential futures: a liminal space in which one is neither “here” nor “there.” This term can be applied to the pathways worn in the natural landscape but just as easily to urban architecture and its contemporary politics. Its poetically expanded reading refers to sites that have been abandoned or are in the throes of decay, those age-old monuments that have fallen victim to capitalist greed and demolition, or to entire city blocks listed for sale. It also applies to the role the body has to play in relation to public and private space – how memory is preserved and how these spaces inform our sense of identity, self and cultural awareness. ------- There is a street art movement in Latin America that goes by the name, Acción Poética. Begun in 1996 by the Mexican poet Armando Alanis Pulido in Monterrey, the collective action has now spread to over 30 countries and 100 cities as a form of literary protest. This urban intervention can be seen painted in black lettering against a white ground on many of the walls of Mexico City’s crumbling infrastructure. I have chosen the phrase “todo estaba previsto” (translation: everything was predetermined) from the movement to act as a critique of the process gentrification, displacement, and capitalist desire in the city and its environs. ------ I see this durational performance as a poetic exercise in resistance, envisioned via the role of language in raising awareness of our present moment - its contradictions, oppressive and destructive habits, as well as our resilience and potential for the creation of new futures. “Todo estaba previsto” is intended as a critique of the present, but the phrase also asks us to question our position in the formation of the new. Its direct but open-ended language is subtly confrontational in tone: will we accept the inevitability of corruption and decay, or will we challenge the politics of the status quo? This occupation of the liminal, of the in-between within a desire line, shifts us away from capitalist notions of productivity and consumption and instead points us toward the more complex underpinnings of being – those that involve presence, remembering, attention, respect, and an acknowledgement of the temporal cycles of creation and decay. Thank you in advance for your support in the ideation, fabrication and documentation of this performative work.