Creative Mural Landscapes, Building Communities and Resilience in Uruguayan Tourism

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to analyze open-air mural painting museums in Uruguay as a model of tourism resilience, sustainability, and social development, being one of the first Latin American examples to demonstrate the ability to adapt to change and overcome external shocks through the creation of creative community landscapes. To do so, documentary research, photographic documentation, and field research were carried out in order to explore the opportunities of mural tourism in small locations in Uruguay. In the nineties, a new type of artistic production was created in Uruguay, initially characterized by its decentralization. This was somewhat of a revolution in the muralist field as, until this time, Montevideo had been the center of cultural tradition, considered the intellectual focus of the country, and had concentrated the largest number of murals. For this reason, the birth of new muralist nuclei in small rural enclaves, which traditionally had not had much access to culture and no link to muralism, is remarkable. Secondly, this new movement sought to diversify economic activity given the consequences of the severe economic crises and environmental catastrophes that were and are still prevalent in these areas. Therefore, these new creative landscapes were conceived as important examples of the resilience of cultural tourist destinations. The results emphasize that, until now, the idea of giving muralism a new use as a tool for local economic development had not been envisaged with reference to mural art in Uruguay. This new rethinking has given rise to the so-called Regionalization Processes of Uruguayan wall production. The most relevant cases are those developed in the municipalities of San Gregorio de Polanco (1993), Rosario (1994), and Pan de Azúcar (1998).

1. Introduction

First, we will contextualize the idea of a creative wall landscape. This is based on two fundamental concepts: the creative city and the cultural industry. In the first place, the creative city is understood as a place where human creativity is presented as the central axis with which to plan, renovate, and transform cities with the aim of making them dynamic and innovative [1,2]. At present, mural painting is one of the means used to reconvert and revitalize public spaces (streets, squares, parks, etc.). Many large cities use this model to reconvert degraded areas, such as historic centers and outlying suburbs, as is the case in Montevideo [3], Madrid [4], Lisbon [5,6], Melbourne [7], Brooklyn [7,8], and London [7,9], to cite a few examples. However, this reactivation model is not only applied in large cities. It has also been used as a local development strategy in rural areas, such as Fanzara in Spain [4], San Gregorio de Polanco in Uruguay [10], and Chemainus in Canada [11]. These transformation processes develop a new redefinition of space, not only urbanistically speaking, but also symbolically and socially, and these murals become new elements that encourage the reactivation of new heritage processes in the place [12]. In addition, they can also behave as a dynamic and innovative component from a social, cultural, economic, and environmental perspective [13], as they are showcased as alternative tourist experiences [14,15] in order to achieve a long-term balance between the different dimensions that comprise it [16]. In this way, within the model of creative wall landscapes presented in this research, the capacity to adopt the measures presented in the World Charter for Sustainable Tourism of 2015 is shown, with the aim of promoting the conservation and respect of the socio-cultural values of local communities, thus, ensuring the protection and identity of both tangible and intangible heritage. In addition, this model can provide an optimal use of the environmental resources of the place, making tourism activity compatible with the conservation of nature and biodiversity, thus, actively responding to climate change. Finally, it can ensure an equitable distribution of wealth through green and circular economic models, responsible consumption and production patterns, reducing pollution and poverty with a better efficiency of the resources they present, providing social cohesion and an inclusive society, among other things [17].

On the other hand, when we talk about the cultural industry, we refer to “those sectors of organized activity whose main purpose is the production or reproduction, promotion, dissemination and/or commercialisation of goods, services and activities of cultural, artistic or heritage content” [18]. Creative cultural landscapes can be framed within this definition, presenting themselves as cultural products that have a great capacity for resilience, given that they generate new opportunities for development in the cultural and tourist sphere and, therefore, in the economic sphere, in addition to functioning as a tool for the diversification and decentralization of the tourist and cultural industry [19], attracting investors and, with them, new economic and business models, thus, becoming a brand and an emblem of the place [11]. From a sustainable approach, the development of the cultural and creative industry must have the capacity to increase employment and opportunities for local communities, promoting the development of human capital through specific policies and programs and, in turn, achieving the empowerment of vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society (women, youth, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, etc.). In addition, this sector can promote digital transformation and entrepreneurship, mainly supporting local micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), favoring a sustainable and inclusive governance model through public-private-community partnerships [20].

After this brief contextualization, it can be said that creative mural landscapes are defined as an urban environment that has been renewed, transformed, and reactivated via mural painting, both on a socio-economic and tourist–cultural level, creating new cultural assets and values. At the same time, this gives rise to the generation of new identity processes [21] and, with it, new heritage spaces. The first case in Uruguay took place at the beginning of the 1990s, and to juxtapose the centralization of resources that existed in the country, a group of people close to the field of culture and tourism decided to use mural painting as a driver for the reactivation of rural areas, giving rise to the so-called “Creative wall landscapes”. This work presents the experience carried out in San Gregorio de Polanco as an example of resilience in the field of Uruguayan tourism [22].

2. Literature Review: Urban Art as a New Tourist Attraction in the Historic Centers of Large Cities

Due to the absorption of mural painting, and especially of urban art, into the art market and its growing acceptance by institutions, mural painting and urban art festivals, together with art, urban design, restoration, and the construction of emblematic buildings and cultural infrastructures, are now used as vehicles for urban regeneration in degraded areas of large cities [23], turning them into creative and cultural districts and distinctive urban brands [24]. The beginnings of this type of model of urban reconstruction can be found in historic centers, such as Lavapies and Malasaña in Madrid, Ciudad Vieja in Montevideo, Bilbao la Vieja in Bilbao (Figure 1 and Figure 2), Shoreditch in London [25], Bushwick in Brooklyn, and Alfama in Lisbon [26].

The cultural economy needs urban centres to have proactive, enriching environments for the development of the new middle classes and the creative city. The role that cultural production has acquired is therefore linked to its spectacularisation and to the use of the strong “pull” of culture to “redecorate” certain degraded parts of the Centre, establishing a series of plots between the subjects of the territory, their meaning, the city, culture and politics [27].

At present, this reconversion of public spaces is also being applied in peripheral areas of large cities [28], such as San Pablo in Seville, Quadraro and Torpignattara in Rome, and Marvila in Lisbon (Figure 3) and in rural areas, such as Dolores in Uruguay, Ordes and Fanzara in Spain, Dozza in Italy [29], and Chemainus and Sussex in Canada [11,21]. In many cases, the reason for this resignification and updating of public spaces resides solely in the fact of beautifying the actual environment, but directly or indirectly, presently, these places end up becoming tourist attractions due to the high demand of creative cultural landscapes by visitors. On the other hand, as recipients of cultural tourism, this reconversion generates new opportunities around the cultural and tourism industry, generating potential spaces for the creation of alternative tours to mass tourism and contributing to the decentralization of traditional tourist destinations [19,30].

Thus, mural works are becoming a powerful tool of resilience for the culture–tourism combination, generating new development opportunities for the communities residing in these urban spaces, which had previously been non-existent [31], such as the opening of new restaurants, small specialized shops, tourist accommodation, emerging art galleries, cultural centers, and cultural activities.

Resilience depends on the capacity of the social system to plan for and respond to different changes [32,33] and especially to deal with less predictable shifts [34]. This has been a capacity of different small locations and devaluated urban areas that have been able to improve their local development through murals [35].

On the other hand, these new economic and business models attract a new type of audience/client, becoming an attraction and an opportunity for sectors with greater purchasing power, such as the so-called creative class, which can trigger changes in the socio-economic structure of the place [36]. It is, therefore, important to highlight the role that public organizations play in the sustainable management of urban environments with the arrival of new opportunities and the revaluation of public land [37]. This can cause gentrification processes in these areas, which convert them into new market domains [38], thus, modifying the traditional economic and commercial activities of these neighborhoods. Land revaluation and speculation is one of the most problematic factors that can occur, with serious consequences for residents belonging to the poorest sectors of the population. There is an increase in the cost of housing and rent, and with this, an increase in prices in general. Thus, the most vulnerable social groups, who tend to be the majority in these particular urban districts, find it impossible to continue living there, forcing them to leave in search of more affordable residential areas. This is also the case with traditional businesses, which find it difficult to survive [27,36]. In addition, there is the new problem of holiday rental apartments, where the purchase of buildings by large private investment funds is frequent, leading to the tenants being forced out as they are not able to pay the increased cost of rent. An example of this situation can be seen in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapies, where the beautification of the neighborhood through murals was initially welcomed positively by residents. However, land speculation and the overcrowding generated by holiday rental apartments and tourists have made the local community come out in protest against the negative effects that the changes in the neighborhood have brought [31]. This has led to some wall paintings being vandalized, including the mural painted by Okuda (Figure 4), one of the most famous international urban artists, becoming another element in the development of gentrification [39]. Therefore, policies need to be developed from a cross-cutting perspective, taking into account urban, social, cultural, economic, and tourist factors, to prevent mass displacement of certain social groups and the loss of these neighborhoods’ identity [40].

3. Methodology

The study was performed using qualitative research, focusing on documentary research, photographic documentation, and field research. The field work focused on the use of tools such as participant observation, participatory action research (PAR), semi-structured interviews, and focus groups [41]. Specifically, PAR is based on critical-reflective thinking carried out via citizen participation, which seeks to combine theory and practice. This develops interaction between the researcher and the informant, generating a self-reflective process on the research topic and encouraging the implementation of collective and plural creative actions by the community [42,43,44,45].

Therefore, this research began with the analysis of data obtained through documentary search, followed by a field study carried out in Uruguay between 2010 and 2016. Initially, 83 semi-rigid interviews and five focus groups were conducted with informants from the field of art, culture, and tourism to determine the situation of Uruguayan mural production (Appendix A). Secondly, a comprehensive inventory of mural painting was carried out through a photographic and documentary record of 1522 mural works distributed throughout the country to find out where mural landscapes had been created and to determine values, such as their state of conservation and their evolution over time as a tourist product or as a heritage asset.

Therefore, the main research question was focused on exploring whether there was an opportunity for mural tourism in San Gregorio de Polanco, a small village in Uruguay.

4. Analysis of Uruguayan Gentrification and Initiatives

One of the first cases of gentrification in Uruguay took place in 1995 when Colonia del Sacramento was named a World Heritage City. The historic center suffered a loss of identity and mass displacement of its residents due to the purchase of buildings by foreign private investors, whose sole objective was to convert the emblematic houses in the south district into hotels and restaurants for the exponential arrival of mass tourism [43]. Another more recent example occurred in the current process of reconversion of the neighborhood of Ciudad Vieja in Montevideo. This district is located in the historic center of the city, next to the port, and is popular with cruise tourists. It is characterized by being a “red zone” and is inhabited by very vulnerable social groups. At the “Urban Extractivism and Gentrification” discussion group, organized by the Montevideo City Council, several testimonies were collected that reflected this issue. One participant spoke directly about how a private urban revitalization project called “El Bajo” was carried out in a very degraded area of the neighborhood. It focused on showcasing Ciudad Vieja as a cultural circuit through the organization of different urban art, theatre, music, and cinema exhibitions [46]. Within the renovation of the neighborhood and following the steps of the MUTA Montevideo project conducted in the Goes neighborhood in 2013, which will be discussed later, the 1st Casa Wang Urban Art Festival was created in 2015. This event was organized by a group of the same name, Colectivo Casa Wang, which includes the most relevant emerging artists on the Uruguayan urban scene, such as David de la Mano (Figure 5), Zësar Bahamonte, Noel, Nulo, Ákite, Pablo Machioli, and Ceci Ro (Figure 6), who painted different walls. These types of actions that develop public spaces have had an impact on the arrival of foreign tourists and, with it, private investment, gradually increasing the price of land and, thus, affecting the resident community [47].

On the other hand, an example of sustainable urban and social inclusion management is the “Habitar Goes” program (2009), whose main objective was the urban, social, and economic revitalization of the Goes neighborhood in Montevideo. This neighborhood was characterized by a high crime rate, which was exacerbated by being a point of purchase and sale of drugs. The starting point was the restoration and opening of the agricultural market, built in 1913 and declared a national heritage monument in 1999, with the idea that it would function as a nerve center for the community. The building was surrounded by occupied houses, many of which were in very poor conditions and had no access to water and electricity. The neighborhood’s complex situation led the City Council to create housing cooperatives that guaranteed access to housing for the lower-middle class residents, thus, preventing the gentrification of the neighborhood [48]. In addition, the urban fabric was provided with new services, such as a nursery and a sports center, and a pedestrian walkway was built. The program used wall paintings to beautify the public space via the project “Murales Barrio Goes”, where several murals were created through an annual contest organized by the Montevideo City Council for several years. In turn, this led to the organization of the MUTA Montevideo Urban Art Festival in 2013, coordinated by a group of urban artists known as “Nothing happens in Montevideo”, supported by the community and government, in which 40 urban artists painted 13 murals. The inclusive urban renovation was completed in the Goes neighborhood, making it a safer place to live in. It is currently visited by 135,000 tourists a year [49].

In a similar vein to the urban art festival format, in subsequent years, several groups of urban artists organized other mass mural painting experiences, using them as a tool to revitalize degraded urban environments, focusing on rural enclaves. One of the most prominent was the one carried out by the Pintó Collective in Dolores in 2015, which was jumpstarted after severe flood episodes. On this occasion, the artists showed solidarity with the citizens and altruistically painted walls and facades for three days. Due to the positive acceptance by the community, and realizing the ability of mural painting to generate new tourist products, the “Paseo de los Murales” mural route was created through the “Coexistence” event, in which murals featured nature and local heritage themes. At government level, the initiative has been promoted as a new tourist attraction in the town [50]. Other urban art circuits that have become a pull for cultural tourism include the rural settings of Villa Soriano, promoted by the Vatelón Residence, and Mercedes, through the two 33 Degrees Urban Art Festival held in 2019 (Figure 7) and 2020.

5. MAAIS, an Example of Resilience and Sustainable Tourism

Until the 1990s, Montevideo had been the artistic center of the country. This is why a large part of the most relevant muralist field works are located there. This is the case of the most iconic mural set in Uruguay, the Saint Bois Hospital murals, painted in 1944 by Joaquín Torres García and the students of the Taller de Torres García workshop, known as the TTG.

Until that time, a large number of the mural paintings in Uruguay were totally linked to “high culture”. Thus, in the decade of the 30s, muralism was framed within the plastic movements of social realism and included works by artists such as Norberto Berdia, Demetrio Urruchúa, Esteban Garino, Luis Mazzey, Carlos González, and Felipe Seade [51]. In constructive universalism, the salient works were carried out by Joaquín Torres García and TTG students, including Augusto Torres, Horacio Torres, Francisco Matto, Edwin Studer, José Gurvich, Julio Uruguay Alpuy, and Dumas Oroño. In the 1950s, the mural aspect was linked to the abstraction movement, with Miguel Ángel Pareja as a key actor, promoting the mosaic technique both inside and outside the National School of Fine Arts [52]. In the decade of the 60s and 70s, the movement disassociated itself from high culture, although it continues to be developed within the scope of the National School of Fine Arts through university activities, such as the “visual awareness campaigns” and the “mural painting campaigns” [30,53].

After the decline caused by the civil and military dictatorship (1973–1985), mural painting underwent a process of decentralization in the 1990s followed by regionalization, thus, bringing art and culture closer together and extending it to rural areas in inland Uruguay [19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]. This led to the first creative mural landscape in Uruguay appearing in San Gregorio de Polanco.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Uruguay underwent large-scale centralization of resources. Due to this situation, the inhabitants of San Gregorio de Polanco, an inland rural enclave with a population of approximately 4000 people, began to look for a new way with which to reactivate and stimulate the economy, which was based on fishing, livestock, and agriculture (Informant 69). In 1993, a working committee was created made up of artists, residents, members of the Ecumenical Service for Human Dignity (SHEDU), and the National Fine Arts School (IENBA) to plan and execute a project that would activate and diversify the economy of San Gregorio de Polanco. The decision was made to cover the facades of some of the most important buildings with murals, thus, creating a new tourist attraction, the San Gregorio de Polanco Open-Air Museum of Ibero-American Art (MAAIS), an unprecedented initiative in Uruguay. This made San Gregorio de Polanco known throughout the country, exponentially increasing the tourist influx (Informant 71). It, thus, became a center for national and international cultural tourism through the country’s first open-air museum [30].

This experience had a great impact throughout the country and San Gregorio de Polanco became one of the most popular destinations for cultural tourism in the 1990s (Figure 8). Due to the huge popularity that the MAAIS acquired, other places decided to replicate this initiative by creating museums in the streets of their cities. These led to the creation of the Historical Mural Art Museum in Rosario (1994), the Open-Air Museum and tango and comedy street shows in the Río de la Plata in Pan de Azúcar (1998), an Outdoor Mural Theme Park in Castillos (2001), and the 25th August Mural Route (2013) [12,22,30].

Over the years, the MAAIS has been the mural landscape that has best evolved to date, mainly due to the direct involvement that the community of San Gregorio de Polanco has had in promoting, reactivating, and laying down the roots of the museum among the community. It should be noted that all the work carried out by the artists has been altruistic since its inception, with the population being in charge of finding funding to pay for the material and accommodation costs involved in each mural painting. In addition, the impact it has generated has been so great that some residents have decided to hire muralists to cover the facades of their houses with wall paintings.

After exhaustive work, information and photographic records were collected to make an inventory of the mural works that have been painted over time. Until now, this had not existed. It was determined that the museum has had a total of 154 murals painted since 1993 (Figure 9), although due to the ephemeral nature of contemporary mural painting, some of the works have disappeared over the years [30].

However, we must mainly highlight the cultural–tourism binomial that has been generated in the town, achieved through the development of experiences that revolve around the arts and cultural democratization, such as the Excentra Arts Laboratory (2004), the 1st International Ceramic Collective Meeting (2010), the 2nd National Ceramic Artists Meeting (2011), and the 1st International Meeting of Plastic Artists of San Gregorio de Polanco. (2015). All of these initiatives have functioned as a powerful tourist stimulus, in addition to contributing works to the MAAIS. Possibly, the main “artistic-tourist” activity that has brought in the greatest number of tourists is the initiative known as the “Integrating Carpet” (2013). This initiative was born out of the idea of painting a 140 m constructivist mural on the pavement of the main street, Avenida General Artigas, in honor of the TTG artist, Julio Uruguay Alpuy. The project design and management were carried out by artists and museum coordinators, who managed to get 1500 people, including the local population and tourists who attended the artistic meeting, to participate directly in the creation of the work [54]. In addition to the artistic significance of this initiative, the Integrating Carpet served to generate a bond of ownership and roots among the community and the participating tourists, thus, encouraging them to return in later years. Moreover, the creation of the MAAIS has managed to break with the scarce seasonal tourism that the town received, mainly as a destination for second homeowners and regional tourism. It is only around 22 km from the so-called “Golden Peninsula” beaches bathed by the waters of the Negra river. Thus, the museum has not only become a powerful tourist brand, promoting it as a unique cultural and natural destination in Uruguay, but also as a flagship and part of the collective imagination of San Gregorio, becoming an element of local and regional heritage [30] and bringing the arrival of tourists who respect the environment, have medium–high purchasing power, and who stay overnight in the town, a phenomenon that had not existed beforehand (Informant 68).

This exponential growth in cultural tourism has managed to generate sustainable local development through the promotion and creation of new opportunities in the business and cultural sector. Since 1993, a large variety of small public and private hotels have been opened with beds for around 1000 tourists. In addition, it is interesting to observe how different projects have been carried out providing tools for the most vulnerable sectors of the community to participate in the economic development generated by tourism. An example is the work carried out by the “Uruguay Trabaja” program, which was organized by the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES) through the Cooperativa 25 de Octubre, aimed at helping people who are at risk of social exclusion to find employment. Thus, the participants were trained in the field of building rehabilitation and to recover degraded mural works. As a consequence of this project, a group of users decided to create the Cooperativa “Polanqueñas Contigo”, where they took visitors on a tour of the museum and offered them typical local food (Informant 70). Another group of women, “Las Polanqueras”, have formed a cooperative for the sale of handicrafts. In 2017, the San Gregorio de Polanco high school created a newspaper in which a group of teachers and students provide tourist information about the town, publishing interviews, conferences, workshops, field trips, and other available services [55]. In addition to keeping tourists and residents informed, this helps to create a closer bond between the community and tourism, encouraging participation and active dialogue between different sectors of the population.

6. Discussion

Mural painting is presented as an effective tool for the development of sustainable tourism [35]. As shown in the case outlined above in San Gregorio de Polanco, the generation of creative wall landscapes can function as a powerful tool for resilience, offering new creative opportunities for economic, social, and cultural development. In addition to being used as elements for the regeneration of public spaces, they work as powerful enablers to create new, unpublished urban brands and activate new identity processes, thus, becoming potential heritage spaces [12,30]. They also promote the democratization of culture, bringing art closer to places that had previously had difficulties in accessing it [10,12].

On the other hand, the study on mural production in Uruguay is presented as a symbol of contemporary Uruguayan cultural heritage, despite the fact that it had previously been understood as an anecdotal art form subordinated to other disciplines, such as easel painting and architecture [3,41]. That is why this study aims to reactivate these spaces as tourist products [13,14,15], stimulating the community and public and private institutions to preserve and extend these mural landscapes [49,50]. It is worth mentioning that the creation of new symbolic values in the public space through mural painting generates assimilation by the community in many cases, leading them to become part of the community’s popular imagination and giving rise to heritage processes, as has occurred, for example, in San Gregorio de Polanco and Rosario [30]. In the case of the MAAIS, the OSE Tank painted by the Clever Lara Workshop in 1993 has become the emblem of the city and is used as one of the main elements in San Gregorio’s tourist advertising campaigns. This fact could lead us to think that some of the mural works that are currently being painted, especially those that belong to the urban art and graffiti scene [56], could become identifying elements over time [21]. Therefore, it is necessary to update the action protocols for these type of works, characterized by being ephemeral both in conceptualization and conservation terms, so that they can be preserved for future generations [7,12,35,57].

7. Conclusions

An inventory and mapping of approximately 1552 works was compiled to catalogue the different mural enclaves that exist in Uruguay with the aim of designing tourist routes and showcasing them as new sustainable tourist destinations. Eighteen mural environments were identified, two of which feature works by artists belonging to the fields of high culture, universal constructivism, and abstraction. In eight of them, the wall paintings are linked to popular culture and regionalization processes, and the remaining ten are by artists from the street art and graffiti scene [56].

At the same time, an exhaustive study has been carried out on the history and development of Uruguayan mural painting from the 1930s to the present, non-existent until now. It is worth mentioning that there was only broad research on the mural work made by constructive universalism in the hands of Torres García and the TTG. In this way, it was essential to broaden the knowledge, focusing the study on the following artistic movements: constructive universalism, social realism, abstraction, mural public art, graffiti, and street art [30,41,51,52,58,59]. Furthermore, it is also noteworthy that, linked to some of these mural landscapes, we have found a society’s sense of belonging, identified by the local communities themselves as part of their patrimonial legacy. That is why, through this contextualization of the history of Uruguayan art, we have enhanced the Uruguayan muralism in its broadest sense, that is, from a historical–artistic, social, tourist, and heritage perspective [41,59,60].

The MAAIS is presented as an example of a sustainable mural landscape. Since its creation in 1993, it has been replicated in different Uruguayan municipalities. As it is the mural art museum that has best evolved over the years, it has been used to compare the different mural landscapes created since the 1990s. This comparison has revealed several deficiencies and common problems in all of them. For this reason, a museum program with strategic guidelines has been set up for cultural tourism and heritage management in order to define sustainable economic, tourist, cultural, and social uses through actions and recommendations.

We have found that wall painting, especially street art and graffiti, has acquired a new resignification and dimension within the art market and the institutional sphere, being used as a tool for the transformation of public spaces and giving rise to new creative cultural landscapes [56]. As a result, these beautification actions in these environments become new tourist attractions directly or indirectly, as has occurred in cities such as Lisbon (Portugal), London (UK), and Madrid (Spain) and in rural areas such as Chemainus (Canada), Fanzara (Spain), and San Gregorio de Polanco (Uruguay). This generates a favorable environment for the creation of spaces that develop new economic and business models. In some cases, such as Lavapies in Madrid (Spain), the historic district of Colonia de Sacramento (Uruguay), and in Ciudad Vieja in Montevideo (Uruguay), this cultural and economic reactivation has had a negative impact on the socio-economic structure of the neighborhood, bringing gentrification processes and, with them, the expulsion of the local community and loss of identity in the neighborhoods. This is why cross-cutting policies need to be introduced when revitalizing public spaces to generate inclusive actions from an economic and social perspective, such as those carried out in the Goes neighborhood of Montevideo (Uruguay) and in San Gregorio de Polanco (Uruguay). In addition, mechanisms need to be created to promote continuous, direct dialogue between the different community stakeholders (political, social, economic, tourist, cultural, etc.) so as to achieve balanced, sustainable management of these environments, preventing gentrification and, with it, the expulsion of residents and a loss of identity, through which they cease to be neighborhoods and instead become theme parks for mass tourism.

In addition, after studying the different mural landscapes in Uruguay, it has been concluded that, from the 1990s onwards, mural production in the country has become decentralized, giving rise to regionalization processes and the birth of creative mural landscapes. The majority of them have been carried out with citizen participation, which is essential both in their management and subsequent conservation [3,12,60,61]. In many cases, this has meant that there was no prior planning, directly affecting the length of time required to efficiently implement their tourist and cultural management. Moreover, some of them have been created exclusively to attract tourism, However, as the appropriate dissemination, enhancement, and marketing actions were not performed, they did not work to pull visitors to the location, were subsequently abandoned, and negatively affected the appearance of the public space, such as in Pan de Azúcar. For this reason, both conservation and the number of murals needs to increase gradually so that they continue to bring in new tourists. In addition, all sectors of society need to engage in these initiatives by carrying out complementary activities around them so that they do not fall into oblivion and become abandoned.

Finally, cross-cutting policies need to be introduced when it comes to energizing public spaces and generating inclusive actions from an economic and social perspective. In addition, mechanisms need to be created that promote continuous, direct dialogue between the different community stakeholders (political, social, economic, tourist, cultural, etc.) so as to achieve balanced, sustainable management of these environments, preventing gentrification and, with it, the expulsion of residents and a loss of identity, through which they cease to be neighborhoods and instead become theme parks for mass tourism.

In conclusion, it is important to remember that, today, the cultural consumption of Uruguayan history drives an increasing demand of cultural tourism, turning these mural spaces into highly vulnerable places. The triad of tourism, heritage, and market draws new “glocalized” Uruguayan maps. Therefore, future research lines will be focused on new models of sustainable management that preserve the different resources linked to this social art [3].