ART, PROTEST AND SOCIABILIZATION IN THE SQUARE: REVEALING POETRY SLAM PRACTICES IN THE CURITIBAN PUBLIC SPACE

Abstract

The article seeks to reveal the contribution of Ground Theory from a constructivist approach for the understanding of the phenomenon of poetry slam – spoken word championship that took place in public space of Curitiba (PR). For this, a local-international description of organization of poetry slam is presented, with Slam Contrataque and Garibaldi’s Square being one of the stages of this poetry dispute in the capital of Paraná. It was trough observation and data collection about this event that some of the practices of the city´s poetry slams were revealed. In this way, a progressive spatial analysis is designed, which describes the configuration of poetry slams, focusing on the place, showing the possible contributions of the rare use of the scientific methodologies of Grounded Theory in geographic research. As a result, latent discussions of urban and contemporary society emerge – such as feminism, racism, violence, among others – both present in the poetry recited in the slams, and in the power that the event carries to public spaces when occupied by the presence of diverse people, voices and verses. In a mixture of art, protest and socialization, territorialities, places of coexistence and the democratization of the space in question emerge.