Eloisa Cartenero

La Boca is another land contrasted to its neighbor, San Telmo. Grand romantic facades and cobblestone in the heart of tangoland awe the tourist in you, but walking along Brandsen st. in the heart of working class Buenos Aires, it is hard to deny that life is lived with passion and pain close at hand. The starch contrast of the two communities is a thing itself. Needless to say, real life is a strange and beautiful thing; precisely the thought process strolling along the street, until edifice 647. One might notice it without the number; it is the one with wheat pasting and paint, and graffiti. It is the one called Eloisa Cartonera.
Stumbling onto this place might be an independent mover and shaker’s wet dream. The inside consists of (how’s your Spanish?)- carton: cardboard, lots of cardboard; cardboard books; cardboard art; cut up cardboard; new and old cardboard. There is also a printing press, and there are people. Six community minded people, who have run the colorful cardboard cooperative since 2003. Not all began with the Coop, but presently there is an equally colorful staff (all brown) of Argentines, a Chilean, and a Columbian. Inside, these community minded folk turn cardboard into art and inside they provide the city’s Cartoneros with a more stable income. Cartoneros are the people that you see, at night or in the morning, collecting carton. Not the garbage-men but individual people often on bicycles, roaming the streets in search of this specific waste. Suffice it to say a hard, if not inhuman mode of survival. Eloisa Cartenera buys the cardboard at $1.50/kilo, a much higher rate then most other purchasers, and uses it for art and book making.
As it turns out, there is an international culture of Cartenero books and literature all across South America. One of Eloisa’s goals is to expand awareness of South American literature. They print the text and paint creative cardboard bindings, as well as display a library of cardboard art and books “hecho” in other countries. Of the many implications behind this project, the most striking is the creation of a community supported space of art and sustainable living. The project began in 2003 within the context of the previous economic collapse, with an art exhibition by Alberto Franco, an artist of Eloisa. Their solution was to build a cyclical process of support in the community with an emphasis on artistic production. Eloisa provides a means for the Carteneros, while beautifying the space in which they all live. They buy the cardboard and what is not used is given back to the Carteneros to sell elsewhere. The books and the space are used to spread awareness of the plight of the Carteneros and proliferate South American concepts and ideas in literature. There are over 200 titles available at Eloisa Cartenera and the cooperative nature means any and all ideas are welcome and appreciated.
So, put one foot in front of the other and stroll down La Boca, soon you will find yourself in an active world of vast creativity concerned with the box-man that is rarely noticed and embodies an invisible side of Buenos Aires to the not so attentive eye. So perk up, and pop in, to a space that is trying to deal with one of Buenos Aires’ many problems from the bottom up, leaving colorful skid marks (or prints) in those hard to find, and usually more worthwhile places. Eloisa Cartenera is open Monday through Friday 9:00-19:00 and Saturdays 14:00-19:00, located at 647 Brandsen, La Boca. More info is available, in Spanish, at there website www.eloisacartonera.com.ar/eloisa/home