Maria’s Sidewalk

Intrinsic to the city and complex, the sidewalk is an unavoidable part of daily urban life, a transient space of dynamism and conflict that comes into existence because of the interactions between the people who inhabit it, and is then dissolved as the users move on.  It is not a neutral space, but rather one of resistance and oppression. A place where what is a network of pathways and free space for some, is a collection of obstacles and obstructed space for others.

Maria’s Sidewalk follows Maria’s experiences of the sidewalks of Miraflores, Lima, Peru. Maria, who is not one person, but the representation of the multiple identities of what I term the “other-woman”, that is, women who don’t fit any western social construct of woman. It is an attempt to understand, with their experiences and emotions, the DNA of the sidewalk.