Expungement (Monaco building)

Mauricio Carmona Rivera

Colombia

On February 22, 2019, the implosion of the Monaco building, owned by Pablo Escobar, took place, generating a debate on historical memory and the denial of the conflict. Expurgo emerges as an audiovisual and editorial archeology, exploring this event and the urban fragment it left reduced to rubble as a mechanism for concealing the links between drug traffickers and certain sectors of the country's political and business class.

The project initially consisted of inscribing the word EXPURGO on the terrace of the building, but due to access difficulties, a banner version was installed two days before the implosion. This ephemeral work, captured only by drones, reflects on the fragility of memory and urban materiality, posing a writing doomed to disappear. The documentary complements this exploration as an audiovisual archeology of the event and the history of the city.