Boquetes (holes) were made in facades to talk to the city. Prisoners climbed like spider-men from hole to hole. Architecture was transformed into an enemy of surveillance rather than serving its primary role as a Panopticon. While the prison system attempts to transform human conduct through architecture, Caseros represents the antithesis: the transformation of architecture through human conduct.
The “Productos Caseros” exhibition focuses on the boquete as the most notorious “product” resulting from Caseros’s DIY transformation. A video displays the two faces of Caseros’s facade as it is hammered to create a boquete, exploring the wall’s material performance. A series of 1:1 photographs shows Buenos Aires as viewed and framed by various boquetes. An original boquete made by inmates is saved from Caseros’s demolition. Video footage documents the seven-hour “surgical” operation to extract a 2x2 metre wall section containing the boquete. Paradoxically, a “void” is the most relevant element to preserve. A video documents Buenos Aires using the preserved boquete as a lens while being transported throughout the city. Residential projects, a park, a school and a cultural centre are planned for Caseros’s former site. More importantly, its 64,000 m3 of demolition material was transformed, as land infill, into a new coastal park. Gaspar Libedinsky