To make space and the constitution according to Lumpérica sublimation: “i knew it hurt because of the scar”

Abstract

This essay analyzes L. Iluminada’s actions and the marginal people that live in the plaza using concepts concerning public space, action, and freedom. Both L. Iluminada and the lumperío (marginal people) transform the plaza and themselves, creating moments of insubordination which are suspicious to the dictatorship. Their “out of place” becomes a place or dwelling because of Iluminada’s actions, which include corporal movements, glances, performance, and writing. This expresses a desire for community, a potentiality which is opposite to what the State dictates. Politically and aesthetically, self-constitution and Constitution coalesce in a proposal of social justice. The photo of a wounded woman (author) and the text’s poetic and baroque language are an invitation to an active reader to create sense and community because of a non-representational poetics. Using concepts from Arendt, Negri and Deleuze/Guattari regarding public space, a desire of community and ethics, this reading of Lumpérica underlines the text’s interest in the transformation of an occupied plaza by the dictatorship into a future space for liberty and creativity.