Content area
This paper proposes the application of art's own way of looking at the world. Specifically looking at two different processes: hand-building of your own house and the self-management of existence, this way of looking allows us to recognize otherwise unknown correspondences between them. After showing how there are forms of control aiming to contain politically and economically the urban poor, I propose two forces visible in self-construction projects: resistance and hope. The argument is informed by the work of philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau and Santiago Castro-Gómez, bringing together social research on economics, urban processes, architecture, law and anthropology. These investigations are put in conversation with works of art by artists like Maria Elvira Escallón and Kcho, and with evidence gathered in visits to women protagonists of hand-buiding housing projects. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]