Tania Candiani

Habita intervenido (Habita Intervened) was a temporary occupation and an act of appropriation of the glass walls outside the Hotel Habita, located in Colonia Polanco in Mexico City. This is the first project in a series of pieces by Tania Candiani that takes graffiti as a language and reinterprets its literary components.

The tagg is a type of graffiti calligraphy that is characterized by being poorly readable, whose content is usually the name or nickname of the graffiti artist. In this project, this type of line was used to write sentences about the graffiti artist’s urban space.

The twenty graffiti artists invited by the artist covered the facade of the hotel with tags that remained there for four months.

The aim of Habita intervenido was to draw attention to the potential beauty of graffiti and to create a discussion about how certain forms of visual expression have been prioritized over others. The project questioned how the context can redefine graffiti and modify its reception, since it is normally perceived as an act of vandalism, contrary to what happened in this temporary intervention.

This territorial invasion reflects on the city, the architecture, the contradictions of the urban image and the readings of the public.