Luxury Ruins Tour Project Favorite 

The environment is one political topic that has become more significant in countries all around the world. One current example of this can be seen in Madrid with the Madrid Central program, introduced in an effort to lower carbon emissions in the city. With the new right winged candidate expected to be elected as the new president of the region, he plans to get rid of the program entirely. Here in Spain, one collective group uses art as a way to get people collectively thinking about the current political situation on climate change. Basurama, through their projects, focus on studying and raising awareness towards finding a better solution for waste management. This group, born in Spain, has a list of projects from a multitude of artists that collaborate to, “establish a platform for people from the social fabric who occupy very different places to come into contact and work together”. They focus on waste management has proposed to find waste where it would not be so obvious to find them. One project of theirs based in the capital, Madrid, uses socially engaged art in coalition with tourism as a form of political activism. This project named, “Luxury Ruins”, takes you on a tour of the city, redefining the map in an effort to educate people on the problem with politics on the issue of climate change. The tour includes an audio guide describing each location and why it is important. Many of the projects from the tour are uncompleted, overfunded project that puts the city under the spotlight for what happened in the early two thousands and how the city handled financial crisis. This example of socially engaged art relies on the audience to participate and come up with their own opinions on the subject. The “Luxury Ruins” project attaches itself to both political problems and environmental problems including political corruption, waste management, and resource exploitation.

This stop on the tour, “The City of Justice”, is one of the best examples of how politics plays a role in climate change and waste management. This was a project to create a community of legal buildings including courthouses and law offices and over 100 million euros went into planning and modeling for the project, but only one building actually got built. Millions of euros went to waste destroying the land and wasting resources for a project that may never get completed. The “Luxury Ruins” tour uses projects like these to highlight political involvement in climate change, and get people from all around the world to think collectively about a solution.