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BAÑO REVOLUTION

Baño Revolution (2009) exposed everyday forms of discrimination that often remain invisible—even within institutions committed to equality. At the University of Buenos Aires, as in most places, public restrooms offered only two options: male or female. But where does that leave trans and non-binary people? Within the rigid binary of gender classification, they were left without a place.

To challenge this, I created an artistic intervention at the Faculty of Social Sciences: I designed and placed stickers on restroom doors with multiple gender identities—women, men, trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse—transforming them into restrooms of multiplicity. To activate the piece, I invited around fifty people to collectively use the facilities beyond traditional gender boundaries.

Baño Revolution was not only an artwork but also a civic gesture: a playful and urgent call to rethink how public spaces embody exclusion—and how art can open them to diversity and plurality.

— Institutional Support and Educational Value

“We supported this initiative unequivocally because we believe it is important to have active artistic expressions in the hallways and classrooms of the university. This particular activity, in the strongest sense, constitutes political art, and thus becomes an essential element in the reflection on social relationships. We firmly uphold the need to promote these specific artistic interventions, based on the conviction that the association between different forms of art and the social sciences is productive for the advancement of knowledge about human societies.”

— Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires

EXHIBITIONS

BAÑO REVOLUTION

APRIL 2009. University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Social Sciences
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

BAÑO REVOLUTION

2012. Spectrum Center, University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Selected Academic & Critical References

The Institutionalization: Feminisms, Sexuality Studies, and Gender Politics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, UBA (1988–2022)

Edited by Carolina Spataro and Rafael Blanco
Publisher: Del Margen, 2024

So Many Bathrooms

Marcos Perearnau
AURA: Journal of Art History and Theory, No. 17, June 2023, pp. 50–77
ISSN: 2347-0135
http://ojs.arte.unicen.edu.ar/index.php/aura

Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Spark Debate on Sexism in Public Space

UBA News, August 2017
http://www.uba.ar/noticiasuba/nota.php?id=18356

2009: Art Activism in Buenos Aires Combats Bathroom Discrimination – More Relevant Now Than Ever

The Artifactoid, 2016
https://theartifactoid.com/2016/04/26/2009-art-activism-in-buenos-aires-combats-bathroom-discrimination-more-relevant-now-than-ever/

Academia, Libido, and Shame

Revista Anfibia, 2015
https://www.revistaanfibia.com/academia-libido-y-verguenza/

Sociology in the Restroom: Notes on an Aesthetic-Political Intervention

Paula Aguilar, Claudia Bacci, Laura Fernández Cordero, Joaquín Insausti, Mariela Peller, and Alejandra Oberti
Journal of the Faculty of Social Sciences, UBA, 2010

An Artistic Performance That Aims to Unleash the Imagination

Marina Oybin, Clarín, 2009

Apology of the Bathroom and Revolution

Syd Krochmalny, 2009
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Elements for an Analytical Aesthetic Praxis or Creative Sociology

Syd Krochmalny, 2009
Research Notes from CECYP (Centro de Estudios en Cultura y Política)

Baño Revolution or the Sociology of the Bathroom

Esteban De Gori & Matías Palacios, 2009
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On Bathrooms and Revolutions

Lucas Rubinich & Marcelo Langieri, 2009

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