Digital Archive Launched to Imagine Alternative Urban Futures for Moravia, Medellin

Archivo Vivo Moravia is a pedagogical digital archive imagining alternative urban futures for Moravia in Medellín, Colombia, which has historically been threatened with eviction while exemplifying community resistance.

The archival digital platform is the culmination of a four-year collaboration of Moravia’s Living Heritage Alliance, which includes UCL academics and Building and Urban Design in Development MSc students, Newcastle University, Centro de Desarrollo Cultural de Moravia, Planearte S.A.S, alongside community organisations such as Moravia Resiste, JARUM, Fundación Oasis Tropical, Colectivo TriciLab, Mama Chila Tours, and the Red Cultural Comuna 4.

Archivo Vivo Moravia represents a community tool for collective action and a political tool for territorial resistance and reclamation. The digital platform aims to support the work of organisations in Moravia advocating for the defence of the territory, as well as researchers, students and individuals interested in self-built neighbourhoods, living heritage and living archives. Part of the project was funded by the second phase of the ‘Imagining Futures Through Un/Archived Pasts’ Award, led by the University of Exeter and sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund.

Commenting on the purpose of the digital platform, Dr Catalina Ortiz, Associate Professor in The Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit (DPU) and member of UCL Urban Lab's steering committee, said:

Features of the digital archive

Archivo Vivo Moravia is a polyphonic space with stories, social cartographies, testimonies and research-based design speculations around the territorial claims of the neighbourhood.

The archive has over 600 records and allows users to feed the repository through a form. The web tool allows direct filtering of content linked to heritage and living archive projects developed in the partnership. The archive also offers a timeline visualisation of the neighbourhood's historical processes and a series of maps depicting the neighbourhood's growth, settlement and planning processes.

This platform will facilitate and guide creative activities that explore comprehensive solutions to disputes. It invites the local and global community to participate in a dialogue about fostering a more decentralised and distributed understanding of urban learning.

The project was coordinated by Catalina Ortiz (DPU), Natalia Villamizar Duarte (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University), Luz Mila Hernandez (Moravia Resiste), and Mónica Saldarriaga (Centro de Desarrollo Cultural de Moravia). The archive records are structured and compiled by María Juliana Yepes Burgos, who also oversaw the web design with Julián Giraldo Hoyos.

Image: Archivo Vivo mural

More information

• Visit the Archivo Vivo Moravia digital platform
• Read the research report in English and in Spanish
• Watch Archivo Vivo videos – Experience 2023, Security of Tenure, Welcoming Migrants and Ecological Regeneration