Intervention at the heart of the Colonia Infonavit Independencia, close to the Jalisco Stadium.
The project covers 1.000 m2 of the sport courts, and the facades of the buildings facing them.
Nierika
2017
Guadalajara, Mexico





The INFONAVIT independencia housing area
The housing is located at the north of Guadalajara.
It is estimated to have around 2.500 inhabitants, living in 1.024 apartments, distributed in 66 similar towers.
It was built by the Infonavit in the early 80’s, and today represents one of the several stigmatized areas of the city, due to the explicit drug dealing problem.
The neighbors tells us that the Municipality has never allocated economic resources to it’s maintenance.
Our perception is that of an abandoned place, with a very complex living dynamic, but with a lot of possibilities to work in order to reverse this dynamic, creating a new usage memory among the neighbors and create appropriation.


Wixárika inspiration
In the wixárika universe, everything is related, everything and everyone is in constant communication.
People, plants, animals, the Sun, the air, water, the earth … all together we are part of the same universe, full of links that unite us with each other.
That is why, for this concept of Community, by the strength of community bonds to understand the world and by geographical proximity, we have chosen the Wixárika people as inspiration for our work.
Nierika
It is the transgenerational mirror of the Wixaricas. A place where different times adjoin. An amalgam of energy that prolongs the wisdom of the ancestors in the following generations, and guiding them to build the future.
«The niérika allows the wixaritari to put order in their daily life, to live in unity in a world in which, otherwise, it would be chaotic and unpredictable. It also allows them to relate the present with the past, and, for this reason, it allows them to live with awareness of their history and know that they are the ones who will design their own future» (Luz Chapela)

Fui, soy, seré
FUI, SOY, SERÉ (I was, I am, I will be), represents the strength of the identity of the Mexican people. The richness of his past, the firmness to keep him alive in the present and the knowledge that in the hands of the people of today is keeping his identity beating in the future.

Work process: collaboration of the community
The process has been developed together with the Department of Culture of Guadalajara, that took the challenge of activate the area through «Cultura Itinerante» activities, «Arte sin Paredes» and «Festival Sucede». The goal was to settle a more open social fabric, capable of embrace outside incentives, and prepare the community for the upcoming project. Our first contact with the neighbors was through one of the surveys that let us to study the context of the area and create two design options. After that, both design options were presented to the neighbors, so that they could vote. They finally chose Nierika. The last stage was the execution, and also was conceived collaboratively. Six unemployed neighbors were instructed to work in heights, and then hired to work with us. As Nierika, we felt the work and it’s development like a transgenerational mirror. A place built on bridges between different social realities working together. This way of building cities should be a model today, in order to develop the society of the future.























Information and credits
- Intervention of 4.500 m2 painted at the Unidad Habitacional InfonavitI ndependencia (Guadalajara, México) between January and November 2017 as a present from the Madrid City Hall to the City of Guadalajara, in the frame of FIL 2017. We got the support of Culture Department of Guadalajara, the CUAAD at the University of Guadalajara – UDG and Pinturas Prisaas main collaborators in the project
- Plastic water-based paint on wall and floor
- We want to truly thank Paco de Blas for being the engine of this crazy adventure
- To Susana Chávez, Denisse González and Renata Rocha for being the best «partners in crime» anyone can have. To Sergio and Jessica Amada for being always there for us
- To Laura Niembro for your care
- To Marisol Schulz for having created the most relevant Book Fair of the world, capable of disrupting en entire city with culture
- To Manuela Carmena, Rita Maestre, Miguel Sanz, and Felipe Llamas for trust in us on behalf of the City of Madrid
- To Antonio Zurita and the rest of UCCI for making Art as a transversal element between Ibero American cities
- To Prisa for providing us with paint
- To Bernardo Fernández Labastida for pressing the green button and Diego E. García – Preciado for what is coming
- To al the UDG, for their passionate implication, specially to the teachers Alejandro Martín Rodríguez Díez Martinez and Roberto Oceguera Tamayo. We were lucky to learn from you!
- To our great students team, without you it wouldn’t have been possible: Omar Rafael Andrade Diaz, Daniela Barajas Corona, Estefanía Hernández Temblador, Priscila Santos Esquivel, Claude Vianey Herrera Valenzuela, Viviana Araceli Castillo Ríos, Benjamín García Salcido, Erika Alejandra Reynoso, K. Sofia González Grijalva, Judith Elizabeth Vallejo Ramirez, Jim Bryan Antonio Avila Piña, Juan José Ramírez Rivera, Gerardo Reyes Toledo, Monserrat Guadalupe Ávalos Tavares, Jonathan Oswaldo Gómez Bautista, Víctor Jesús López Pedro, Karla Aguayo López, Mayre Alejandra Villalvazo Mendoza, María Teresa Reyes Aguilar, Emanuel Ruiz García, Arela Tanahiry González Gómez, Pedro Eduardo Guareño Estrada, Aranxa Carolina Aguilar Mendoza, Nancy Lillian Gutierrez Carrazco, Jair Antonio Gallardo Martínez, José de Jesús Carriedo Garza, Oscar Estrada Mendoza, Pedro Ozieri Rivera Rodriguez, Ángel Alberto Lemus Mares, Omar Esparza Ávila, Alfonso Castañeda García, Sinuhe de Jesús Anica Saavedra, Jorge Eduardo Ornelas Osorio, Vanessa Estefanía Castillo Ríos, María Guadalupe Ramírez Flores, Jazmín Alejandra García Ruiz, Paloma Pérez Apodaca and Ana Victoria Ortega Aguilar
- To our warriors in the community: Axel, Titino, Garra, Gula, Ramón y Julio for making Infonavit Independencia a better place, breaking prejudices
- To the rest of the neighbors, for joining us, for making café de olla and making the community our home during the 4 weeks of the project
- To Marte and Jess for being a family
- And last but not least, to our carnal Gibran Julián, a.k.a. Gibravo for being our sixth man, and the best host anyone can have in Guadalajara. You are one of us!
- Boa Team: Diego Vicente
- Support at the studio: Pablo G. Mena, Clara González
- Photography by Boa Mistura, Marte Merlos and Rafael del Río. Drone photos and footage: M. A. Productions (Miguel Azanza).