The Guardian Weekly

Colombia Spray painters and the paving rebellion

By Luke Taylor BOGOTÁ LUKE TAYLOR IS A COLOMBIA-BASED JOURNALIST COVERING LATIN AMERICA

Unlike Bogotá’s graffiti artists, who use hoodies and the cover of night to hide themselves from the authorities, Francisco de Nicolás can be seen wandering the city centre in broad daylight, spray can in hand, as he seeks his next target.

He is on the lookout for loose paving slabs that could soak or trip unsuspecting pedestrians. When he finds them, he casually highlights them in hot pink paint, chatting jovially to passersby and handing out business cards.

“They call us the Colombian Minesweepers,” the 35-year-old said with a grin, embellishing a concrete slab with a black cross. “This is our form of protest.”

Colombia’s paving rebellion began when an elderly woman fell over after treading on a loose tile in Nicolás’s neighbourhood, breaking her wrist. Soon afterwards, Nicolás started marking loose tiles with a black cross to help prevent others from getting injured on Bogotá’s broken streets.

Now the action has morphed into a movement, Empecemos – or Let’s Begin – and Nicolás and friends are not just making Bogotá’s street hazards visible to pedestrians but hoping to shame local authorities into fixing them. “We have grown into a whole group of city activists,” he said.

Anyone who has spent time in the Colombian capital will have experienced the perils of the city’s loose paving slabs – especially when it rains. Water accumulates with grit and mud underneath loose slabs until an offguard pedestrian treads on it, sending streams of brown sludge.

“Oh yeah, who hasn’t been screwed by one of those?” said Andrea Patiño, a 22-year-old student, dodging some of the freshly painted tiles. “I was rushing to university when I got absolutely soaked through.”

Julián Pinto, a 38-year-old systems engineer, recalled unleashing the wrath of a “spitting tile” while on his way out one evening dressed up in a pair of new white trainers.

“It puts you in a pretty bad mood … Especially when you’re supposedly paying taxes to maintain this!” he said.

“The cracks, the uneven pavement stones, the corrupt building work combined with dog shit and human shit … It’s a bloody minefield,” said Robin Davies, an English teacher from London who has taught in the capital for 10 years.

For elderly people, such hazards can be a more serious affair than just a pair of stained jeans, a ruined date or a bout of tears.

“My 70-year-old grandmother spent two weeks in hospital. She had to get her knee drained after she fell on a loose tile,” Patiño said.

Nicolás’s 90-year-old grandmother fell and had broken her nose.

The Minesweepers have painted 11,000 slabs so far, making them popular with elderly people though they also have young admirers who comment on their social media posts, suggesting their next targets.

One goal is to protect people – particularly older people and those with impaired vision who may not readily see street hazards.

Such civic intervention is not uncommon in Bogotá’s public spaces: craters in the road may be marked by a tree trunk to warn drivers, or an exposed manhole could be blocked with a tyre, both comical but ultimately kind acts that could save a life until the local authorities come.

Eventually Nicolás and friends want to pressure the mayoralty into fixing the streets regularly– rather than just when elections are looming.

“Public spaces in Bogotá are totally neglected, which is why citizens have to organise themselves in an artistic way,” said another volunteer, Giovanni Acevedo.

The Minesweepers are already expanding their horizons, moving on from loose slabs to tag all kinds of hazards, from deadly street hatches to missing drain covers and protruding strands of jagged metal wire.

A growing number of volunteers are joining in and the group is planning to crowdfund enough money to tag a million slabs. So far, however, local officials have yet to respond to the colourful campaign of protest. “We are still waiting on a call from the mayor’s office,” said Nicolás.

‘One goal is to protect older people and those with impaired vision’

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2023-06-02T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-02T07:00:00.0000000Z

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