2014

Graziela Kunsch

For this project, São Paulo’s municipality was approached with the idea of having a free city bus, with no known destination, that would circulate throughout the city during the months of the 31st Bienal. The expression ‘tarifa zero’ (‘fare free’) would be written where the bus’s destination would normally be displayed. This bus would pick up and drop off commuters at existing bus stops and would not stop at the Bienal building. It may well stop at Ibirapuera Park, but this is beside the point. More important is the suggestion of displacement itself as a place, and the encouragement of other ways of getting around.

In his book Rebel Cities (2013), geographer David Harvey holds that the right to the city must not be limited to the right to access to existing urban spaces. It is, above all, the right – and responsibility – to remake the city; an active right to make the city different, based on our desires. By adopting the image of a city bus with no turnstile (or fare), this work contributes to the collective construction of a different kind of imagery in the city, in dialogue with the struggle of the activist organisation Movimento Passe Livre (‘Free Pass Movement’), soon to complete its tenth year of activity.

There was no way of knowing, at the time this guide went to print, whether the municipality would actually agree to the proposal, or if adaptations would have to be made. But the Tarifa Zero bus can exist, at least as a project – or as a horizon, a destination – in an effort of collective, radical imagination. – GK