Invisible Monument
2019 - 2022In 2012, a pedestrian bridge was commissioned to reconnect the city of Lima with its beaches. Since the 1960s, urban planning had prioritized cars over people, making the highway along the coast the only official access to the shore. This new bridge was meant to restore pedestrian access to the sea, but construction halted amid the Lava Jato investigations—a major corruption scandal involving public authorities from Peru and Brazilian construction companies. For eight years, the unfinished structure stood as an abandoned mass of concrete on the shoreline.
Slowly falling apart, the bridge was not left unused. Beachgoers began to repurpose it—broken slabs of concrete became tables, and the neglected monument became a site of informal, everyday use.
This project reimagines the bridge as a monument. Like the nearby religious monument that overlooks the shore, this unfinished structure speaks of state neglect and broken promises. But it is also a monument to resilience: invisible in plain sight, as if shielding us from disillusionment. In the face of abandonment, people found ways to reclaim the space, to reach the sea on foot, and to reappropriate a city that often denies them access. Even within a fractured system, the collective will to inhabit, transform, and share public space persists.
Installation view Lila Drache
Halle - Saale
July, 2021