Global InformationGlorieta de las mujeres que luchan information
 The roundabout a few hours after the sculpture was installed | |
 Location | |
| 19°25′59″N 99°09′17″W / 19.43306°N 99.15472°W | |
| Location | Mexico City, Mexico |
|---|---|
| Designer | Feminists |
| Type | Antimonumenta |
| Material | Steel (formerly wood)[1] |
| Height | 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in)[1] (formerly 1.9 m [6 ft 3 in][2]) |
| Opening date | 25 September 2021 |
| Dedicated to | Women |
On the afternoon of 25 September 2021, a group of anonymous feminists intervened in the Christopher Columbus roundabout on Paseo de la Reforma Avenue, Mexico City. On an empty plinth surrounded by protective fences, they installed a wooden antimonumenta, a guerrilla sculpture that calls for justice for the recurrent acts of violence against women in Mexico. It was originally called Antimonumenta Vivas Nos Queremos (lit. transl. Anti-monument We Want Us Alive), subsequently known as Justicia, and depicts a purple woman holding her left arm raised and the word justice carved into a support on the back. Additionally, the Columbus roundabout was also symbolically renamed the Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan (Roundabout of the Women Who Fight).
The traffic circle formerly honored Columbus with a statue sculpted by French artist Charles Cordier, which was installed in 1887. Prior to a 2020 anti-Columbus Day protest, Mexico City's administration, led by mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, removed it from the pedestal under the pretense of restoration. Months later, Sheinbaum announced that the statue would not be returned to its original site and that, following a request from 5,000 indigenous women to decolonize the avenue, a monument would be installed to honor them. The project was named Tlalli and proposed a sculpture created by a non-indigenous male artist who drew inspiration from the existing Olmec colossal heads, all of which depict men. Feminists objected to the proposal because they considered that the sculptor unsuited to honor indigenous women and a few days later they installed their own design on the plinth.
Justicia was not initially intended to be permanent; according to the installers, the city could select the sculpture's design but should rename the traffic circle to their suggested name instead. Since its placement, feminists have organized cultural events at the roundabout to honor all the women who they describe as fighters and men who fight for them and have had their names memorialized on the protective fences, installed a clothesline to denounce the injustices that they have experienced from authorities and society, and replaced the original woodwork with a steel one. Sheinbaum, on the other hand, had commented that the government of the city wanted to officially replace the Monument to Columbus with a replica of The Young Woman of Amajac, a Huastec sculpture, and thus relocate the Vivas Nos Queremos anti-monument elsewhere, an action to which feminists were opposed unless their demands were met.
Following months of discussion, in February 2023, Sheinbaum declared that both Justicia and The Young Woman of Amajac would coexist in the same traffic circle, while the Columbus sculpture would be relocated to the National Museum of the Viceroyalty, in Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico. To avoid further conflicts, Sheinbaum's successor, Martí Batres, relocated the replica project to an adjacent traffic island.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
proceso2was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Antimonumenta en Glorieta de Colón sí representa a las mujeres indígenas, responde colectiva" [Antimonumenta in Columbus Roundabout does represent indigenous women, replies feminist collective]. SDP Noticias (in Spanish). 28 September 2021. Archived from the original on 19 November 2021. Retrieved 19 November 2021.