The project I want to expose at Bienalsur is the result of ongoing long-term research about the organized football fan crowds and their behavior. In particular, my work examines what are the ‘situations’, the rules, and all the actions that lead to the formation of such a complex community. Considering ‘community’ in a positive sense, namely as a social group, a social environment to which people wish and try to belong.

To say that football is simply a game, or a sporting discipline does not allow us to understand the practices of hooligans. It is a form of collective activity that condenses profound social meanings. My work considers hooligans in terms of an ‘Imagined Community’ in Benedict Anderson’s sense: a sophisticated ensemble of rules, identities, and codes. Indeed, supporters adopt a particular lifestyle to build a sort of nation to which they feel they belong, despite the absence of a real connection to its people.  The artistic artifacts will represent the intrinsic relation between football and violence, focusing mainly on the ritualized confrontations and how groups construct their collective identity.

The ambition of this artwork is to give a more profound insight into the phenomenon of hooliganism, paying attention to the symbolic value of identity and social representation thought artistic production. The output will try to answer the following question: how is a Hooligan Community ‘imagined’ — in Anderson’s sense — and reproduced in an artistic dimension?