Buenos Aires

Between 1975 and 1983, tens of thousands of people went missing in Argentina’s “Dirty War.” The exact number of the tortured and murdered in state-sponsored detentions is impossible to determine due to the discreetness of the disappearances and disposal of the bodies. Free speech was nonexistent; the members of the media and press who spoke out frequently became part of the missing. It was in this environment of fear that street art became a public voice, and in the decades that followed it has continued to be part of an activist culture of art, especially in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. This week, filming started on a feature-length documentary called White Walls Say Nothing (Paredes blancas no dicen nada in Spanish) that aims to capture the history and contemporary vibrance of Argentine street art.