The remembrance wall 8M 2021. Collective aesthetics, affections and bodies in resistance

Abstract

The paper analyzes feminist aesthetic-political practices during the 8th of March 2021 commemoration for the International Women's Day in Mexico City. The government fenced the perimeter of the National Palace with a metal wall on the eve of the demonstration, to avoid confrontations, as stated in the official discourse. By means of analyzing the expressive resources and the aesthetic-political, corporal and affective practices of the feminist protest, triggered by the placement of the metal fences, we identify three aesthetics-in-the-streets that impugned their installation and the State's message: 1) An aesthetics of feminist demands inscribed in the building-body of the National Palace, 2) The collective intervention of the metal wall and its resignification as a remembrance wall for the victims of feminicide, and 3) The aesthetics of rage and indignation in the confrontation of the bodies of the women who attempted to tear down the fences and the bodies of the police guarding the National Palace. The staging of collective aesthetics, affections and bodies in resistance, that enabled the reappropriation and collective re-signification of the sense and feeling of the 8M 2021 protest is analyzed.