Graffiti Revives Colombian Culture

In the 1990s, the “Comuna 13” had a homicide rate of 357 per 100,000 habitants, almost triple compared to Medellín’s average of 123 per 100,000 habitants and more than 1,200 people were forced to move out, according to the website Colombia Reports. It was labeled as one of the most dangerous places on the entire planet, home of drug trafficking gangs and Colombian rebel groups.

Today, Barrio San Javier is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Medellín with around 12,000 visitors each month thanks to street artists and their graffiti displayed around the comuna. Street art and graffiti are crucial for a community because it gives artists a public place to show their passions and talent and improves the quality of life in Medellín.

Street art in the Comuna 13 show the true talent of Colombian people and display the colors of the community and the culture. The main characters of this street art movement are the group called “Casa Kolacho”. It started when the musician and community leader of the neighborhood, Héctor Enrique Pacheco, also known as Kolacho, was murdered in cold blood by street thugs on the 24 of August of 2015. Because of this, his friends and partners decided to start this street art movement to reduce violence in the community. Since that day, street artists have been showing their talent through different types of street art like hip hop dance, or the most popular, graffiti.

The walls in the Comuna 13 in Medellín are covered in beautiful murals and graffiti that serve as a way for street artists to express themselves and their ideas while showing their incredible artistic skills. These graffiti also form a huge part of the culture in the comuna because it shows the true colors of the community. Street artists were able to show their passions and talent in a public space, but they also made a great impact on the way of life in the Comuna 13.

After the street art movement in Barrio San Javier, violence and crime rates have dropped and it is now one of the most visited tourist attraction in Medellín. In the 1990s, the homicide rate in the Comuna 13 was of 357 homicides per 100,000 habitants, but in 2017 that number was narrowed down to just 48 confirmed murders thanks to the cultural and social changes Barrio San Javier has received in the past few years, according to Periódico El Tiempo.

The Comuna 13 was once considered one of the most dangerous places in the entire world, but this all changed after residents of the comuna had had enough and decided to make a change. Hip Hop groups and street artists took over the comuna and created an entire culture of vibrant colors and positive energy and made what was once a war zone, a place rich with culture and full of emotion. Even though this street art movement has made a huge change in the way of life in the Comuna 13, some people still consider this art as vandalism.

Graffiti is considered vandalism in a lot of people’s eyes because it can be related to gangs and used to mark their zones and territories. People also look at it as vandalism because a lot of times, street artists put their graffiti in unauthorized zones and damage that property. But what the community in Barrio San Javier does is that they have their own labeled and authorized zones to paint their graffiti and they do it to help their community.

Street art can be used to portray a message and to show the talent of people that can’t show it anywhere else. It can make a huge impact on a community and it shows the true culture of the people. It is so crucial to a community that it can even change one of the most dangerous places on earth, to a very popular tourist attraction