Popping Up Soon—at an Unspecified Location Near you

Mercadito POP was originally created in June 2012 as an underground and economically collaborative Pop-Up crafts fair in La Paz. The organizers saw the need to address the huge socio-economic limitations and needs that were present in the creative and artistic community in Bolivia. The way they did this was to try and create an event that would call into question —and hopefully help answer— perhaps the most important problem that the artists, designers and creators faced: generating a fair income from their creative endeavours. Mercadito POP also provided a diverse range of artists (of which women make up around 80% of the participants) an opportunity to showcase their work and make a name for themselves. 

Bolivia is home to a great deal of talented and ingenious young artists and creators working across various disciplines. The issue for most of them is that the large majority find themselves in a situation in which they are not able to make a living off of their creativity alone and thus are unable to dedicate as much time to their artistic work as they would like. They are forced into institutional, commercial and/or governmental jobs just to survive. All of this is because, until now, there has been a profound lack of understanding when it comes to the importance of the creative economy and its contributions to Bolivia’s economy as a whole, forcing it to continue functioning as an underground and informal economic movement. The creative economy includes more than just art and its associated sales. It encompasses any kind of innovative or creative endeavour—a factor crucial to the evolution and development of any economy.
Mercadito POP has grown into an artistic and cultural platform that promotes these types of small-scale creative ventures and offers new and different experiences to the public. To do this, the concept of occupying physical spaces (often considered unconventional or unlikely candidates for such an initiative) is a very important feature. These locations are as varied as a colonial house behind the San Francisco Church in the historic center of La Paz, the front esplanade of a convent in Cochabamba, an underground parking lot in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, or an out-of-business cellar in the Zona Sur district of La Paz. Thanks to these unusual spaces and the more personal nature of the interactions that they encourage between artist and attendee, those who come often end up developing a relationship with the artist, something that would be almost unheard of in more conventional galleries. Apart from making the experience more pleasant for both parties, this also brings some benefits for the artist: these relationships can sometimes lead to repeated commission work which is typically what an artist needs to make a living. 

Mercadito POP may have its right foot in the public sphere —as the project works alongside local authorities and enterprises in order to put on its events— but it keeps the other foot firmly placed in the underground. It does this through both cultivating and presenting alternative forms of consumption to the public; by appreciating local independent design and inventive crafts, environmentally friendly ventures, and responsible consumption. Perhaps, though, the most important function served by Mercadito POP is the way in which it has opened up the debate on the importance of mapping and empowering the creative economy sector in Bolivia. It has worked to bring into focus the tremendous lack of funding for the arts provided by the State. Bolivia, according to Mercosur, only dedicates 0.0012% of its national budget to culture, a tiny percentage when you compare it to other South American nations. For example, 0.27% of Brazil’s budget goes towards the arts. However, there are now some signs of slow and slight change. The government is working on a new piece of legislation—la Ley de Culturas. Though not necessarily as broad as it could be, the new legislation is certainly a step forward in the relationship between the government and the creative sector and it is, at least partially, the result of initiatives put together by underground collectives—just like Mercadito POP. 

When Ukrainian model and Barbie doppelgänger Valeria Lukyanova proclaimed herself to be a reincarnation of the Tiwanakan god Wiracocha, little did she know that she was adding to Bolivia’s long, dark and mysterious religious history. In this article, Alex Walker presents three snapshots of the dark side of Bolivian faith, from the ritual sacrifices of the Tiwanaku to the devil-worshipping decadence at the haunted Curva del Diablo.

Tiwanaku
Although the Tiwanacotas—the great civilization of the altiplano around 1,000 years ago—had a number of figures they worshipped, Wiracocha was arguably the most significant. A supreme god and destroyer who ‘in the beginning created the dark’, he presents an ironic contrast to the Christian creation story in which God struck light out of darkness. Wiracocha is said to regularly visit the earth disguised as a beggar to check up on humanity and the resultant fear of upsetting or disappointing the gods is a thread that can be traced throughout Bolivian religious history. There is also something of the Romantic hero, reminiscent of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, about Wiracocha. Indeed, the veneration of a sublime, omnipotent deity in Bolivia is no less strong today with the upcoming Fiesta del Gran Poder.

Similarly, it is not unheard of during the Alasitas fair for Catholic priests to be seen blessing another Tiwanakan figure: Ekeko, the god of abundance and prosperity. These kind of contradictions seem to be inherent in Bolivian faith—for example, in the paceña church La Merced, people hang ribbons on the arm of San Francisco de Paula who is now covered with scrawled curses against their enemies. These contradictions are a byproduct, perhaps, of merging pre-conquest beliefs with the Catholicism imported by Spanish conquistadors. Marcos Loayza, film-director of the 2008 Bolivian classic ‘Cuestión de fe’, tells me that ‘our whole continent is marked by a particular syncretism’, an amalgamation of different religions. This conflation of religions is nowhere more striking than in the modern-day town of Tiahuanaco where, standing guard at the entrance to the Christian church, the statues of St. Peter and St. Paul are, in fact, looted effigies from the Tiwanaku ruins.

The dependence that the Tiwanacota people had on a good harvest and obliging weather spawned a desperation to please their environmental gods. Anthropologist Carlos Candora explains that ‘the harsher the conditions, the more intense the rituals.’ Indeed, archaeologists have discovered evidence that ritual human sacrifices—including disembowelment—formed an integral part of religious practice in Tiwanaku. Even more shocking, though, was the discovery of headless mummies, indicating that decapitation also became part of their rituals.

To this day, the Aymara, descendents of the Tiwanaku and current inhabitants of the altiplano, hold ritual llama sacrifices at the end of each winter, offering their blood up to the stones in order to ‘reinvigorate the soil and give it back its agricultural potential’, according to Candora. After the tribe’s extinction, the great city of Tiwanaku was looted and torn apart by Christian conquistadors, leaving the bare, desolate ruins of today. Ironically, then, perhaps the ‘darkest’ thing to happen to this ancient society was inflicted by the insensitivity of another, invading faith. 

When studying Tiwanaku religion, it is essential, according to archaeologist Dr. Jago Cooper of the British Museum, to try and detach ourselves from our own cultural lense, explaining that ‘any discussion of ritual or sacrifice has to be seen within a cultural context.’ It would be easy—perhaps even natural—to dismiss these Tiwanaku customs as barbaric due to our instinctive way of looking at the past through the cultural paradigm of the present day. However, a number of today’s topics—take capital punishment, bullfighting and alcohol consumption, for example—may well be viewed with this same contempt by the year 2050. To make the mistake of immediately denouncing Tiwanaku customs, then, would render us as guilty of cultural insensitivity as the Spanish conquistadors destroying the heart of this great, ancient civilization.

El Tío
If we fast-forward 1,000 years, we find perhaps the darkest figure of worship in Bolivia today: El Tío. Miners believe that when the devil fell from heaven, he entered the earth at Potosí. It must be noted, though, that where the Western devil is synonymous solely with evil, vice and sin, El Tío represents both a malignant and a benign figure. Loayza explains that ‘our devil is not the rest of the world’s devil; he doesn’t represent evil as such. . . . He is the male figure to Mother Earth.’ In fact, many miners lead an innocently literal double life, worshipping the Catholic God above ground and El Tío down below. 

It is considered essential for miners to ask El Tío for safety and prosperity in their work, as they believe that their average life expectancy—47 years—is a result of El Tío’s wrath rather than their dreadful working conditions. Juan Bacilio Apaza, 33, who has worked in the mines at Potosí since he was 10 years old, explains this dependence: ‘One must always look after El Tío—give him coca, alcohol and tobacco. This is so that he keeps us safe . . . . it is he who looks after us.’ This is strikingly portrayed in the documentary The Devil’s Miner, directed by Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani, when Basilio—a 14-year-old working in the mine at La Cumbre—says the following words: ‘Never stop believing in El Tío. He eats the miner. He kills him then eats his soul. Only if he is generous, the devil will give us a good vein of silver and let us leave the mine alive.’ Father Sebastian Obermaier, once a miner himself, considers this fear as ‘a rejection of God . . . a failure of faith: the devil does not give life, only God can do this.’ Worship of El Tío, he believes, represents ‘a moral choice.’ The Catholic Church, of which Obermaier is a representative, is certainly not blameless for the rise of El Tío. Indeed, as The Devil’s Miner argues, the conquistadors may well have inculcated a fear of the devil to keep their horrifically exploited and mutinous workers in line. 

The fear that ‘if El Tío is not fed, he will punish the miners’ is such that sacrificial offerings have become an integral part of mining culture; most notably, the ritual slaughter of llamas. More disturbing, though, is the idea that human foetuses have come to play a part in the sacrificial rituals. This, alarmingly, is not a ritual limited to the mines. Indeed, it seems it is not uncommon for human foetuses to be buried under new buildings to ensure safety and prosperity. For important and grand buildings, though, a human foetus is often considered insufficient and—in a horror story reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe—witch doctors will prey upon alcoholics and lowlifes, taking them in and plying them with excessive amounts of food and drink until they pass out, at which point the unsuspecting street wanderer is entombed—alive but unconscious—beneath the concrete foundations.

La Curva del Diablo
As we make the journey down the side of the highway from our makeshift stopping point, I am decidedly sceptical. We passed the shrine on our way up, a flash of colour from the melted wax candles offered to El Tío in exchange for good fortune. It didn’t seem like a great altar for the congregation that converge here each Tuesday and Friday night. Today is Saturday, 9am: the morning after. Standing here is like sitting in an empty cinema, surrounded by torn-up tickets and empty popcorn bags, staring at a blank screen. There is evidence of life, of activity, but now there’s just a silence broken only by the rushing wind of passing vehicles. It is an eerie, haunting setting. I am also acutely aware of the nine road accidents that took place here in the first half of last year—ironic, given that people pray here to Lucifer for safety, then, that this has become something of a hotspot for traffic collisions.

With each step, we pass other strange objects: black bin bags we don’t dare disturb; solid drips of candle wax suspended on the rock face; lines of burnt-out cigarettes arranged as a decadent offering. But to whom? Legend has it that, around 20 years ago, a snake appeared from the rock face, causing a truck to crash. Then the devil’s face appeared on the rocks. But there is no face here now. When we talk to three ABC Highways Agency workers posted next to La Curva del Diablo for the last three months, they explain that the police, who usually turn a blind eye to illegalities here, tore down the devil’s face after a young man was found at the curve with his throat slit. It was believed to be an act of human sacrifice.

A local emerges from a building on the site they are repairing. He tells us that murderers and drug dealers worship at the curve; that a friend of his went drinking there and appeared the next day with an inexplicable broken nose; that the decadence begins at 8pm and only draws to a close at 5 in the morning; that chickens are the most common sacrifice—white representing benign requests and black symbolising a conveniently ambiguous ‘change of fortune’. The only chicken we could find, though, was incinerated, a mass of charcoal and ash. This, however, seems a merciful death given that live animals are often trapped and left to starve in this hellish place. As we descend towards La Curva del Diablo for a final inspection, we spy a group of morbid-looking worshippers round the corner, dissolving into the mountain. The final cholita—a vision in black—brushes past us out of nowhere, hurriedly pursuing the rest of her flock, the shredded ends of her black dress struggling to keep pace, the faceless devil awaiting open-armed.

Underworlds in Bolivian Literature

At the turn of the 20th century, writing in Bolivia almost exclusively tackled surface issues like campesino life and later the globalisation of the nation. ‘Periférica Boulevard’ by Adolfo Cárdenas, runner-up in the Premio Nacional de Novelas (2005), republished last year with accompanying illustrations –see timeline across page–, has helped to turn the tides of Bolivian literature. Alex Walker meets Cárdenas to discuss ‘Periférica’ and the rise of the underworld in mainstream writing.

Emergence of the Underworld
Jaime Saenz (1921-86)
Someone Cárdenas cites as a significant influence, Saenz introduced the idea of the other world. He suggests that decadence – particularly alcoholism – allows us to transcend our metronomic, monotonous quotidian to a new, intriguing existence.

René Bascopé (1951-84)
Bascopé’s most popular work, ‘La Tumba Infecunda’ offers snapshots of La Paz’s underworlds through a ‘conventillo’: a huge public house where society’s outcasts would rent rooms – reminiscent of Madame Vauquer’s boarding house in Balzac’s ‘Père Goriot’.

Victor Hugo Viscarra (1958-2006)
Viscarra’s literature reflects his own life on the margins of society. Struggling with alcoholism, drugs and crime, he eschewed literary conventions creating a manner of expression moulded to describe the underworld that enveloped him.

Juan Pablo Piñeiro (1979-)
Arguably Piñeiro’s most important work, ‘Cuando Sara Chura Despierte’ is set during the Fiesta del Gran Poder and depicts a city in chaos, dealing with the uncomfortable merging of indigenous and modern cultures.

Reading Periférica Boulevard reminds me of watching Mathieu Kassovitz’s film La Haîne, a story that follows the frustrated existence of three young misfits, living on the margins of society. Throughout the film, these characters struggle against the police corruption and violence that defines the vicious circle of their existence. The parallel that stands out between Periférica and La Haîne, though, is their use of language. Where ‘La Haîne’ enacts the tension between Paris and its underworld by combining traditional French with Argot –slang developed and used in parisian ghettos– Periférica Boulevard. adopts a similarly innovative dialogue: a fusion of Spanish, slang and indigenous language.

Periférica Boulevard is a murder mystery set on the outskirts of La Paz. Two policemen arrive at the scene of the crime to discover that a person has been killed at a gigantic music hall. The victim is none other than EL REY, a rocker and self-proclaimed king of these underworlds. All the evidence points to an infamous subterranean character known as EL LOBO, known for his graffiti rivalry with EL REY. The two policemen embark on a chase across the city in pursuit of the single eye witness of the crime. The persecution ends in a shocking revelation (spoiler alert): the policeman (lieutenant Villalobos) is none other than El Lobo himself. But beyond being a murder mystery, Periférica Boulevard is a map of the cultural La Paz and its margins, as well as an insight into the (sometimes) incomprehensible jargon of these polyphonic urban tribes.

When I suggest to Adolfo Cárdenas, in a café overlooking Plaza Avaroa, that, to understand Periférica, it must be read out loud, he shakes his head: 'If you open your ears, you will hear this language everywhere'. Cárdenas, who describes himself as a ‘relator-investigador’ (researching narrator), is as creative as he is perceptive. In fact, he claims that none of Periférica Boulevard comes from his own personal experience; that 70% is fiction and 30% is formed from the world he discovered in his investigation. When talking about this world, Cárdenas explains his surprise at the contradictions he found: abandoned wild dogs becoming 'pets of a community', the 'semi-clandestine double existence' of several bars and clubs, and how 'different worlds' would spring up from nowhere when the sun went down.

When discussing the effects of his work, however, Cárdenas expresses frustration at the laborious, slow development of Bolivian literature: 'almost nobody in Bolivia tries to innovate, they just follow the trends of the time'. The theme of graffiti in Periférica can be viewed as allegorical of Cárdenas’ disillusion with the restrictions of literature. Indeed, he describes graffiti as ‘one of the freest and most anarchic forms of communication; limitless because it is clandestine and anonymous’. True, these clandestine voices offer a more accurate reflection of a society than history books or tourist brochures because they do not come with a self-serving agenda: history is, after all, written by the winners and promoted by such brochures. Cárdenas, instead, writes to bring these underworlds, marginalised by society and literature into mainstream focus: it is both a piece of fiction and of journalism. Marcos Loayza, film director of the bolivian classic Cuestión de Fé, believes that Periférica Boulevard is Bolivia’s ‘finest book’ of the last 30 years, explaining that ‘somehow, the things that are on the margins, excluded by society, better illustrate its fears, prejudices and anxieties than those at its centre’.

Loayza, though, believes that the arts are 'slowly regressing', attributing this to a poor 'awareness of our cultural heritage' and citing the examples of people stealing from churches or dismantling metal sculptures to sell as scrap. For a country with such a well-documented revolutionary history, it is paradoxical, then, that the arts are not evolving. Cárdenas has an explanation for this, too. He claims that 'political protest is too connected: literature becomes purely criticism'. Whilst this may be somewhat true, I cannot help but feel that, more often than not, literature does flourish in the face of adversity – take Isabel Allende’s ‘La casa de los espiritús’, for example. Written when exiled to Venezuela following the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende, at the hands of the Pinochet military coup of 1973; she uses first person narrative interjections by Esteban Trueba, the novel’s antagonist, to expose the political corruption, machismo and neglect of the campesinos that pervaded Chile at the time. Successful literature, then, is able to engage with the problems within its society.

Described by shvoong.com as ‘disjointed, babelic, difficult and illegible, essential and easily one of the ten best bolivian novels of all time’, Periférica Boulevard triumphs –according to Cárdenas– in ‘unveiling the quotidian language of the peripheries’. This, though, is blatant over-modesty. While its language does play a role in bringing the voices of the underworld into mainstream focus, there is more to Periférica Boulevard than that. Cárdenas, small of stature with and with a glinting smile, takes a final sip from his cafecito and stands up to leave, he glances back and gives a wave as he steps out onto the Plaza. The silent revolutionary is swept up into the faceless throng until the sun descends and the underworld awakens once more.