Abstract
This article examines the radical street performance practice of Bernardo Ángel Saldarriaga in Medellín, Colombia, as a site of political and epistemological transformation. Through ethnographic engagement with Saldarriaga—an ascetic artist who stages trance-based interventions in public space—the study analyses how his performances disrupt dominant narratives of history, identity, and citizenship. Drawing on political ontology, decolonial thought, and critical heritage studies, the article argues that Saldarriaga's work functions as a hybrid forum for negotiating plural knowledges and social imaginaries. His refusal of institutional funding, his embodied critique of state power, and his use of trance and possession rituals generate both affective resonance and sociopolitical rupture. The article also reflects on the ethical tensions involved in researching artistic practices that resist extractive knowledge production and evade normative academic legibility. Ultimately, the analysis positions Saldarriaga's embodied interventions as a powerful form of subaltern agency that reconfigures urban space, memory, and modes of collective imagination.
Publication Date
7-29-2026
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Submitted Date
2025-07-11
Accepted Date
2026-02-15
First Page
231
Last Page
252
Recommended Citation
Balán, L. (2026). Performing Disobedience: Critical Spatial Heritage, Counter-Memory, and the Rewriting of Medellín’s Public Space. Interiority, 9 (2), 231-252. https://doi.org/10.7454/in.v9i2.1209
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