Rio de Janeiro is a city that, like many others around the world, has streets, squares, and avenues named after commemorative dates. Some mark events of national importance, while others seem to result from simple arbitrariness. The city and its surrounding municipalities have approximately 150 public roads with this characteristic, some of them repeated up to seven times, such as 15th of November Street, for example.
Throughout 1999, a performance was carried out that made use of this urban peculiarity. From January 1 to December 31, 1999, all the streets in the city bearing calendar dates as proper names were visited on their corresponding day of the year. In other words, these locations were visited chronologically over the course of a year, on their anniversary dates, even when repeated in different parts of the city.
All routes were marked in a street guide, and their signs were photographed together with the artist, who held that day’s newspaper in his hands to attest to the action’s authenticity – an attitude similar to that used by criminals as proof of life for kidnapping victims.
At the end of a year of work, a large drawing emerged from the sum of these journeys across the city’s geography, along with a collection of photographs illustrating the expeditions – records in time and space of a year-long effort.
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