Culturas y el agua

On 8th August 2024, colonia Culturas de México, a peripheral neighbourhood outside Mexico City, was flooded and remained under a mixture of rainwater and sewage for almost five weeks due to damage to its main drainage collector caused by land subsidence. In July 2025, after a section of a new collector, designed to substitute the old one, became operational, a collective of local activists and I explored, through a radionovela wworkshop—a local form of radio drama—possible futures for the neighbourhood and alternative approaches to water management beyond those practiced by government engineers. By improvising a series of scenes between different characters, participants thought ahead about how the community could prepare in the event of the new collector's failure. This contribution presents the context of the workshop and the transcript of the collective's final improvisation.