Taking Up Space: Siting Gender and Ethnicity in Argentina’s Juana Azurduy Monument

In the past decade cities across the globe have made strides in creating space for more inclusive representations in the public sphere. However, not all projects have succeeded in this vein. Though seemingly a straightforward attempt to revisit history, Andrés Zerneri’s Juana Azurduy Monument (2015) offers a case study of the socio-political issues that emerge when attempting to rectify the gendered and ethnic exclusions perpetuated in the public sphere. Examining the politics behind the installation of the 5-ton, 52-foot-high bronze monument to this 19th-century indigenous independence fighter—one of the first women to be monumentalized on a grand scale in Argentina’s public sphere—elucidates the fractious power struggles around who generates and defies expanded notions of representation in a purportedly democratic public sphere. Through the study of political rhetoric, visitor response, the sculpture’s commissioning process, an ekphrasis of the Zerneri’s shifting models, and the debate around siting and displacing the memorial of a First Nations woman, this paper reveals how Azurduy’s representation is intimately connected to the changing role of women in Argentina. This historic link finds its roots in the late 20^th century’s resistance of traditional gender expectations imposed by the 1976-83 military dictatorship and extends to the role of Argentina’s first woman president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (in office 2007-2015) in representing women in public. Ultimately this paper argues that seemingly permanent monuments in Argentina’s contemporary commemorative environment are constructed by politicians whose vision is at first reflected in public space and then destabilized and altered by their political opposition.