Colombia's Memory House Museum and Argentina's Space of Memory

V A L E R I A P O S A D A V I L L A D A

WHEN MEMORIES BECOME DUTY

Colombia’s Memory House Museum and Argentina’s Space of Memory and Human Rights

War is not a life: it is a situation; One which may neither be ignored nor accepted, A problem to be met with ambush and stratagem, Enveloped or scattered. A Note on War Poetry T.S. Eliot

WHEN MEMORIES BECOME DUTY: Colombia’s Memory House Museum and Argentina’s Space of Memory and Human Rights

Written by Valeria Posada Villada 11127554

Advised by Dr. Ihab Saloul Second reader Mirjam Hoijtink

Master Thesis Masters in Museum Studies Universiteit van Amsterdam January 2018.

Abstract

In Latin America, Duty of Memory, or Deber de memoria, forms part of Transitional Justice measures that strive to symbolically address mass historical violations through the public recognition of victims and the incorporation of their stories of pain, exclusion, and repression into their national narratives. Within this context, Argentina and Colombia are two examples of the complexities inherent in attempting to restore the social networks. Scarred by a past military dictatorship (1976-1983) and a continuing internal armed conflict (1946-), both nations have applied Transitional Justice Systems and Duty of Memory as state policy. However, even when the two countries share the same framework, the political dynamics of each country and the ways their civil societies conceive of justice, vary considerably. Argentina is closer to a Retributive Justice model in which individual criminal accountability for the past is prioritized of over other forms of symbolic reparation. Colombia frames its past and present through Restorative Justice, defining violations as collective wrongdoings and basing reparation on dialogue, negotiation, and restoration of the bonds of trust. These two distinct viewpoints can be contrasted through the analysis of the material aspect of Duty of Memory, that is, the memorial museums and trauma sites that have emerged as spaces of reflection and commemoration in both countries. This study takes one memorial museum and one trauma site as embodiments of two outlooks on Duty of Memory. The memorial museum is the Museum House of Memory in Medellín, Colombia, which focuses on clarifying the effects of the armed conflict, acknowledging its victims and survivors and re-signifying violence to support peacebuilding interventions. The trauma site chosen is the Space of Memory and Human Rights (SMHR) of Argentina located in the Navy- Petty Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA), one of Buenos Aires’ former Secret Detention Centers, and now functioning as a humanitarian platform to condemn state Terrorism. Within this thesis, I explore how the architectural, spatial, aesthetic and programming practices of these two sites are influenced by the obligations required by Duty of Memory but also establish a two-way relationship with this framework defining the content that is to be included within it.

Acknowledgements

Looking back, I can say this thesis is the final product not only of months of research but of the experience I acquired while working in museological projects on memory back in Colombia. Therefore, I want to thank former colleagues, supervisors, friends and Human Rights advocates whose valuable approaches and experiences on the subject have contributed to shaping the methodology used in this research. With regards to the editorial process, I am deeply indebted to Laura Alexander who stood beside me on nights without end to help me make sense of Argentina's and Colombia's painful past both narratively and emotionally, becoming a fundamental source of support. I also want to express my gratitude to my supervisor Ihab Saloul for his interest in Latin America's museological approach to painful pasts and his remarks on Duty of Memory as part of state policy. The historian Arij Ouweneel should also receive a heartwarming thank you. Ouweneel's disposition to share with me his insights on regional memory politics, Duty of Memory and cognitive psychology have certainly left an imprint on this work. He, as well as the CEDLA institute overall, received me with open arms and sharpened my knowledge by engaging with my research in multiple conversations and provided me with an extensive collection of bibliographic references unattainable in other Dutch universities. It is also worth mentioning the CRAM documentation center in the Memory House Museum, Diego Guiñazu from SMHR's educational program and Celeste Orozco from the Museum Site of Memory ESMA, who generously granted me access to an essential number of documents and provided me further contacts to develop my research. Micaela García and Nora Poggio in Buenos Aires and Maria Paula Pérez in Medellín also became my second eyes, taking photographs of the places I did not get to be or which I did not previously register, helping me have a closer look on the social landscape of both countries. Even when miles away, I express my most profound gratitude to my parents and brothers, who have relentlessly supported me throughout this journey and have revealed to me the traces of the conflict in our hearts and family history in the hope that these will, someday, become a matter of the past. Last but not least, I undertook this research with the goal of communicating my admiration towards the individuals who have endured the painful effects of repression and

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violence in Colombia and Argentina, creating alternative pathways to deal with the past and becoming personal and political referents in my career path. I hope this work does justice to them.

Contents

Abstract Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations List of Figures

Introduction 1

Theoretical Framework 4 ▪ The Contexts of Duty of Memory 8 ▪ Retaking control of a Secret Detention Center 20 ▪ The Bicentennial Park and the MHM project 26 ▪ SMHR’s and MHM’s Museological concepts and models 32

Chapter I. Duty of Memory gives life to a Space: The Space of Memory and Human Rights in Buenos Aires 35 ▪ What to do with the ESMA? ▪ Homage 43 ▪ Resistance 48 ▪ Reparation 53 Chapter II. A House to stage Duty of Memory: The House of Memory Museum in Medellín 61 ▪ Recognition 69 ▪ Clarification 75 ▪ Restoration 80

Conclusion 86

References 94

Appendices 114

List of Abbreviations

SMHR Space of Memory and Human Rights MHM Memory House Museum TJS Transitional Justice System SDC Secret Detention Center ESMA Navy-Petty Officers School of Mechanics ERP Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo CONADEP National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons Abuelas Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo Madres Madres of the Plaza de Mayo Madres L.F Madres Foundational Line Liga League for the Rights of Men APDH Permanent Assembly for Human Rights SERPAJ Peace and Justice Service CELS Centre for Legal Studies MEDH Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights Familiares Family members of Disappeared-Detainees AEDD Ex-Detainee/Disappeared Association H.I.J.O.S Sons for Identity and Justice against Oblivion and Silence MC Complete Memory AFFyAPPA Association for Families and Friends of the Political Prisoners of Argentina IEM Institute Space for Memory EAAF Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team GAC Street Art Group CPM Provincial Commission for Memory FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia M-19 19th of April Movement ELN National Liberation Army EPL Popular Liberation Army

MAQL Quintín Lame Armed Movement MAS Death to Kidnappers AUC United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia CNRR National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation GMH Historical Memory Group SNARIV National System for the Attention and Integral Reparation for the Victims CNMH National Centre for Historical Memory EDU Urban Development Company PUI Urban Integral Project POT Spatial & Territorial Planning CRAM Centre of Resources for the Activation of Memory OIM International Organization for Migration AECID Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation EPM Medellín Public Enterprises ASFADES Association of Relatives of the Disappeared CINEP Centre for Research and Popular Education IPC Popular Training Institute AFAVIT Association of Relatives of the Victims of Trujillo ASOVIDA Association of United Victims of the Granada Municipality CARE Centre for Approach, Reconciliation and Reparation of San Carlos PROVISAME Promoters of Life and Mental Health MAMM Modern Art Museum of Medellín RCLM Network of Colombian Sites of Memory RESLAC Latin American and Caribbean Network of Sites of Memory

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List of Figures Appendices

A. Map of the City of Buenos Aires including percentage living under poverty line and SMHR location 124

B. Map of the SMHR including crime spots and Human Right Organization Headquarters 125

C. Map of the City of Medellín including the sixteen communas and population density 126

D. Construction Plan for the Bicentenary Park made by Planta Baja Architects 127

E. Tree of Life sculpture assembled by the artist Leobardo Pérez Jiménez with the cutting blades collected from the Comunas in the Municipality’s Week of Disarmament. 128

F. Mahatma Ghandi Sculpture made by the artist Ram Sutaren donated by the Indian Embassy as a gift. The quote translates: “If you are at peace with yourself, at least there is one place at peace in the world”. 129

G. Siluetazo in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 22 1983. 130

H. Photographs of the disappeared in the Cuatro Columnas, Madres de la Plaza Building and Museum Site of Memory ESMA 131

I. GAC (2013) Presentes installation in the SMHR precinct, Nazza Stencil ‘Juicio y castigo’ mural in the H.I.J.O.S building and Carlson’s (2014) Apparitions exhibit at the Infirmary. 132

J. The Cuatro Columnas Building in 1928 and 2017. 133

K. Cuatro Columnas base floor blueprint with the objects displayed by December 10, 2017 134

L. The artistic installation of grey and red ‘marble tiles’ displayed at the Cuatro Columnas Building. 135

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M. Preserve to Transmit Memory cabinets that contain the four objects found in the forensic research. Close-up to the left lateral cabinet that showcases the cigarette buts and the coca-cola cap. 136

N. Glass panels displayed in the Basement of the Museum Site of Memory ESMA. 137

O. Video testimonies presented in Capucha, the third floor of the Museum Site of Memory ESMA 138

P. Passage to the Flights of Death 139

Q. Trujillo Park Monument with a view of the Ossuary above and the Route of Memory below 140

R. A view of the photographic display at the Never More Salon in Granada and the Garden of Memory in San Carlos, Antioquia Department. 141

S. MHM’s permanent exhibit divided according to three functions: Memorialization (blue), Clarification (orange) and Restoration (green). 142

T. The nine hundred eighty commemorative plaques displayed on the lateral side of the MHM. The message inscribed in the upper plaque states “My lovely boy, I am still waiting for you”. 143

U. A view of MHM’s commemorative plaques and testimony cylinders in the evening 144

V. One of the six life-size screens presented in Experience no. 12: Life Stories 145

W. Experience no.15 or Chamber of Memory 146

X. The Timeline (no.8) displays documentary sources that narrate the onset and evolution of Colombia’s armed conflict on a local, regional and national scale 147

Y. Two of the visual metaphors included within the experience no.11, Tables. The first one depicts the life paths of children, adults and elders as a roulette in which violence creeps in hindering their dreams, taking their loved ones and inserting them into the conflict. The second table uses one indigenous language (non-identified) to show how these communities experience of the conflict and translate the conflict. 148

Z. Video art representation of the concept of Solidarity presented in Experience no.9. The video states “Alone we are vulnerable. Together we are much stronger” (1996) 149

AA. A photograph of the exit corridor or Resistances with Andrea Valderrama, the current director of the House of Memory Museum. 150

AB. Memory Landmarks that have been initiated and inaugurated after the ratification of the Justice and Peace and the Victims Laws in Colombia 151-152

Introduction

As soon as I began working with the Air Force as an adjunct researcher in the year 2015, navigating through the stormy seas of Colombia's armed conflict, I heard the term Duty of Memory repeatedly mentioned in conversations, interviews, and symposiums. Every time this concept was invoked, any opinion acquired a solemn character but its concrete meaning always eluded me and I was unable to find an interpretation that seemed adequate. However, I was able to grasp the term once I started to hear the stories. Stories like that of Johan Steven Martinez, a boy who never got to meet his dad because he was only three months old when the army sergeant was captured by the guerrilla, never to be seen again. Or Carlos, a student who I briefly met on my way to work and who revealed to me that white flowers always reminded him of his father who had been killed just five years before by the paramilitary group who ruled his hometown. These stories showed me that I could not comprehend Duty of Memory until I was able to grasp its social weight. Duty of Memory goes beyond a concept, a Law, a monument or a one-day commemoration. It is not solely about counting the dead, or counting stories about the dead, it is about making their stories count. Within the Latin American context, Duty of Memory forms part of political transitions which strive to symbolically redress mass historical suffering through the public recognition of victims and the integration of their stories of pain, exclusion, and repression into their national narratives. After the fall of the dictatorships in the Southern Cone and the peace agreements in Central America, and thanks to the joint effort of victim´s associations and Human Rights groups to keep the past on the political agenda, public institutions in this region, including its museums, became forerunners in reparation programs for victims, survivors, and their families. Having learned this, I became interested in researching the ways in which cultural institutions in Latin America, especially museums, responded to this state-sanctioned demand, and in the strategies they have developed over the years to address their difficult pasts and presents. Limiting my field of research, I decided to focus on two countries and two museological institutions within Latin America, choosing Argentina since it was the first country in the region to implement a Transitional Justice System (TJS) and subsequently memorialization to compensate the victims. I also chose to focus on Colombia, the most recent country in the region to implement a TJS. In both cases, Duty of Memory has been ratified by the state, the victims, and Human Rights organizations as an attempt to clarify

the facts and to seek accountability for the crimes committed on the last few decades. However, the way this framework has been inserted into the public sphere varies according to the political dynamics of each country and the ways in which each civil society conceives of justice. As part of the material aspect of Duty of Memory, museological institutions are ideal points of departure in examining how the particular historical contexts and social landscapes of Argentina and Colombia have resulted in two different approaches to this shared framework. In order to carry out my research, I have based my museological analysis on one trauma site and one memorial museum. The memorial museum is the Museum House of Memory (MHM) in Medellín which focuses on mourning the victims of the armed conflict (1946-) and on re-signifying violence to support peacebuilding interventions. The trauma site chosen is the Space of Memory and Human Rights (SMHR) located in the Navy-Petty Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA), one of Buenos Aires’ former Secret Detention Centers, and now functioning as a humanitarian platform to condemn State Terrorism. I will explore how the architectural, spatial, aesthetic and programming practices of these two sites are influenced by the obligations required by this framework but, at the same time, determine the content that is to be included within it, establishing a two-way relationship with the painful pasts of the nations. Four questions guide my research: What are the main functions assumed by these commemorative sites? What are the role victims, survivors and their relatives play within the administration of these institutions, and in the exhibitionary and educational activities they promote? In which ways do the MHM and the SMHR represent the State’s commitment to Truth and Reparations? And finally, what lessons can these two institutions teach other cultural centers which are dealing with, or will deal with, transitional contexts? The methodology used was primarily based on qualitative research. The historical analysis was based on a bibliographic review of secondary and primary sources such as newspaper articles, Truth Commission reports, national legislations, Human Rights Reports, and museum proposals. For the museographic analysis, the information was collected either through on-site research of the permanent and temporary exhibitions of both museums or through the curatorial scripts and guide manuals drafted by the SMHR and MHM. Since I was not able to do field work on the Educational and Public Outreach programs of each institution, I gained access to these contents with the help of staff members or through institutional websites. In the thesis layout, the curatorial, educational and outreach programs have been grouped thematically. Nonetheless, each of the

programs was examined separately to comprehend how different cultural products revealed different aspects of Duty of Memory. The thesis also included the personal outlooks of victims, their relatives, staff members, Human Rights advocates, artists and intellectuals working at the institutions. I reference two personal communications with staff members of the SMHR, while the remaining ones were taken from online interviews, documentaries, and speeches. The thesis has been divided into four chapters, and its structure follows a chronological and thematic logic. The initial section of the first chapter outlines the theoretical framework which guides the research. The second part of this chapter provides a historical background on the dictatorial regime in Argentina and the armed conflict in Colombia and gives an insight into the debates surrounding the construction plans and layouts of the two museological institutions. The second and third chapters focus respectively on the SMHR and the MHM. Each of these chapters gives an initial overview of the actors involved in the memorialization process and the previous initiatives which have affected the two institutions. They also conduct an analysis of their exhibitions and educational programs. The conclusion provides an explanation of the differences between the two museological models, and uses their strengths and weaknesses to reflect on how their methodologies may be helpful for other institutions dealing with transitional contexts.

Theoretical Framework

Although its exact attribution is unclear, the expression Devoir de Mémoir, or, its translation in Spanish, Deber de Memoria, is generally assumed to derive from French philosophical responses to the Holocaust. By contrast to English or German, in which it can be translated as Duty of Memory, Duty to Remember, Duty of Remembrance or Debt of Remembrance, in French and Spanish the term has no variants.1 Both the French devoir and the Spanish deber spring from the same Latin root, debere, which refers to 'something that is owed'. By adding mémoire, the combination points towards Devoir de Mémoir, or its more common translation, Duty of Memory: 'I must remember that I am indebted to somebody.' Regardless of the different translations, in all these languages, Duty of Memory is defining the act of remembrance as an ethical imperative, one that commands certain obligations and a particular treatment of memory. However, this concept of Duty of Memory remains somewhat obscure. Which concept of memory does this term refer to? What is its content such that it can be prescribed as a duty? And whom does this duty address? In this case, memory goes beyond the individual process of storing and recalling information and designates the social process of endowing recollections with meaning. This process, of a predominantly narrative nature, is one which takes place in the public sphere through individuals’ interaction and negotiation (Arenas, 2012; Jelin, 2002). Through it, collectives connect the past with the present and transform a sequence of mere happenings into a storyline. Since the process of negotiation involves various actors in different points of history, it is a process that implies selection and is subject to change. Yet what changes is not the information or the historical events, but the meaning collectives give to these memories in the present and what they decide is worthy of conserving or leaving behind (Pollak, 1989).

1 According to Bienenstock, M. (2010) the most accurate translation from French to English would be Debt of Remembrance. However, since most of the academic texts in the present refer to it as Duty of Memory, I decided to employ this translation to avoid confusion.

When the meaning-making process of memories turn to past experiences of mass suffering, such as genocide, dictatorship or warfare, in which the proclamation of certain historical narratives may disregard the losses of an injured party and potentially lead to the reoccurrence of violence, it is believed that the act of remembrance carries with it a weight, a duty. Memories become a social imperative and are subsumed into justice because it is believed that collectives should not overlook or remain impassive towards painful histories. Instead, they should take responsibility for the past, acknowledging the voices of those who were wronged and giving them a space to express themselves (Teitel, 2014). As Barón & Marín (2011) assert, Duty of Memory “is a duty towards the wrecked (the ones who did not make it) and a responsibility for those who were saved (the ones who made it) to give an account of what happened. It is also a call to society so that through the exercise of telling, it can exorcise, liberate, and reconstruct itself” (130).2 Therefore, it is possible to equate Duty of Memory to Todorov's (2000) concept of Exemplary Memory. Considered as a form of social remembrance, Exemplary Memory strives to incorporate stories of pain, exclusion and repression as part of a community's history to allow individuals process collective wrongdoings and extract lessons from them. Contrary to Literal Memory, in which the memories of difficult events are seen only in terms of grief, Exemplary Memory serves as a referent of action in the present and helps tackle prevailing social inequalities and injustices. Thus, Duty of Memory attempts to transcend guilt and culpability by establishing itself as a political exercise to confront the horrors of history and overcome its legacies by creating inclusive and nondestructive ways of social coexistence (Ševčenko, 2011). Fundamentally, the role of Duty Memory as a framework with which to confront the past is based upon the idea that "there is a core of innate rights to human beings, in such a way that if they are violated they would be violating, in the end, the core of humanity itself" (González Jácome, 2007, p. 50)3. Endorsed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) that resulted from the aftermath of the Holocaust, states have been made responsible for guaranteeing and protecting these basic rights to prevent the recurrence of

2 Translated from Spanish by the author: “Es un deber para con el hundido (el que no lo logró) y es una obligación para el salvado (el que lográndolo) debe dar cuenta de lo que pasó. Pero también es un llamado a la sociedad, para que a través del relato, exorcice, libere, reconstruya” (Barón & Marín, 2011, 130) 3 Translated from Spanish by the author: "Las reparaciones están reconociendo que hay un núcleo de derechos innatos a los seres humanos, de forma tal que si se les vulneran se estaría violentando, en últimas, la propia naturaleza” (González Jácome, 2007, p. 50)

mass-scale destruction of populations (Tate, 2007)4. When a violation has already taken place, Duty of Memory makes itself present, so that nation-states confront the transgression and actively seek to make amends through what Bonner (2014) has termed ‘discursive accountability’. Defined as a reframing act, discursive accountability is meant to involve state and civil society actors in the task of deeming unacceptable something previously tolerated, so future violators can be held responsible. Through this form of accountability, memories of painful events expose the faults of societies and contribute to the public edification of citizens. In this sense, discursive accountability is seen as a key step in activating legal and other forms of responsibility. It is therefore unsurprising that in the last two decades Duty of Memory has become a framework through which states are attempting to restore social trust and the legitimacy of democratic institutions (Jelin, 2002; Orozco, 2009). Currently, Duty of Memory forms part of the TJS, a distinctive conception of justice employed in periods of political change after authoritarian governments or armed conflicts with the aim of state-building. TJS is formed by a series of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented to process violations through the use of a Human Rights discourse (Teitel, 2014). Judicial measures include criminal prosecutions and reforms of laws and institutions such as the police and military. Non- judicial actions include Truth Commissions and other symbolic and economic forms of compensation (International Center for Transitional Justice, n.d.).5 Duty of Memory forms part of the symbolic reparation scheme which helps dignify victims by clarifying the circumstances that lead to mass suffering, establishing a public disclosure on the truth and counteracting denial or censorship (International Court of Transitional Justice, 2013; Jelin,

4 Since the concept of Human Rights remains ambiguous in meaning, I decided to base my analysis on Tate’s (2007) definition. “Human Rights hold the individual as the ultimate rights-bearing subject. Through international legal standards and multilateral treaties, Human Right claims are made against the state because it is the institution that promises to protect its citizens and holds the monopoly of power” (p.5). 5 These judicial and non-judicial measures integrate two conceptions of justice that resulted from the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946) and Argentina's (1984) and South Africa's (1994) Truth Commissions. On the one hand, the TJS assimilates the Nuremberg Trials’ Retributive Justice, setting up the principle of individual criminal accountability for gross violations of universal human dignity. On the other hand, it integrates South Africa's and Argentina's focus on the victims and the need to repair the damage caused by revealing a past wrongdoing through Truth Commissions reports and other symbolic acts of reparation (Paige, 2009; Teitel, 2014).

2014). “According to the guidelines adopted by the UN's General Assembly, victims are entitled to have three different demands met: (a) access to justice, (b) the right to reparation, and, lastly, (c) the right to know what happened” (Morte, 2014, p. 439). In this case, Duty of Memory acts upon the rights to truth and reparation as it emphasizes a crime has taken place, focuses on the verification of facts, ensures adequate access to information on the violations and gives families and communities the possibility of mourning and commemorating their losses. Initially, Truth Commissions were seen as the preferred method through which Duty of Memory could fulfill the victim's right to truth and reparation. Created as official bodies to investigate, document and report upon Human-Rights abuses that occurred over a historical period, commissions produce written documents based on the victims’ and survivors’ accounts of history, accuse perpetrators and show the scale of damage inflicted in society (Morte, 2014; Zalaquett, 2004). However, the implementation of various TJSs has demonstrated that these rights can also be implemented through other formats to make reparation have a greater and long lasting social impact (González Jácome, 2007). This is why artistic, cultural and memorialization initiatives are now seen as alternative methods through which states can pay the social debt they owe to victims, survivors and their relatives. Memorialization can assume either material or immaterial forms. The latter include the announcing of specific dates as holidays of remembrance, the dissemination of mourning rituals and activities that pay homage to the survivors and the dead, and the promulgation of the victims’ perspective within state educational programs. The former acknowledges painful pasts through the installation of physical markers such as memorials, plaques, parks, museums, and archives. These markers integrate Duty of Memory into the physical landscape of a nation and make them accessible parts of everyday life (Williams, 2007). Argentina and Colombia are two examples of the complexities inherent in attempting to restore the social networks scarred by a past military dictatorship and a continuing internal armed conflict through the application of a TJS and Duty of Memory as state policy.6

6 As Teitel (2014) outlines, Transitional Justice chronology implies a “nonlinear approach to time. This phenomenon is reflected in legal responses that are taken often in the form of delayed litigation, to extend the span of transitional, case by-case” (p.61). Therefore, even though thirty-five years have passed since Argentina made its transition towards democracy (1983), judicial prosecutions are still being filed against former military members and civilian collaborators. Colombia’s implementation of transitional justice mechanisms even before the end of an internal armed conflict also demonstrate that these normative shifts do not necessarily

Both countries have resignified the meaning of crucial historical dates, so the stories and lives of the victims of state repression and armed conflict achieve public recognition. Argentina has renamed March 24th, the anniversary of the Coup d'Etat, as the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice. Meanwhile, Colombia has selected April 9th, a date that previously commemorated the 1948 assassination of the liberal presidential candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and converted it into the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with the Victims. Thirdly, Argentina and Colombia have installed, or plan to install, National Memory Archives responsible for collecting and preserving all official and personal documentation related to the theme of state terrorism and armed conflict. These initiatives provide access, for both government and civil society, to information that helps reconstruct events in the interests of academic research or effective judicial investigations (Mercosur IPPDH, 2012). Moreover, both states have also funded the establishment of landmarks, such as monuments and memorial tiles, in the places where violations took place or where victims used to live, work or study, and have included these as part of the symbolic reparation measures. Nevertheless, since Duty of Memory is a political exercise there are inherent in it additional obligations which differ between the two countries (Bienenstock, 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to understand the historical contexts of the two nations in order to comprehend the obligations and functions this duty assumes within the cultural sphere.

The Contexts of Duty of Memory

In Argentina, Duty of Memory is used to overcome the lack of retributive justice towards the crimes of a state which used extreme forms of repression to maintain its political hegemony. Argentinian's refer to this historical period, which lasted six years, as ‘Dirty War’ (J. Dávila, 2013). During this time the military dictatorship turned mass imprisonment, torture, and disappearance of civilians into a state policy which was supposedly aimed at neutralizing the 'Communist menace' in Argentina (Vezzetti, 2002). From 1976 until 1983, the military converted a "vast network of shop fronts, private residencies, auto mechanic shops, factories, hospitals, and public military schools into makeshift torture centers" (Bishop E. K, December 2014, 566).

to follow a standard post-agreement procedure and can be used to instigate reforms that actually contribute to curtailing violence (Orozco, 2009; Skaar, García-Godos, & Collins, 2016).

According to Human Rights organizations, 10,000 were imprisoned, 30,000 adults and 300 teenagers disappeared, 30,000 became exiles and 500 children were born in Secret Detention Center (SDC) and then taken away from their mothers (Brodsky, 2005). Family members of the disappeared and ex-detainees condemned this repression as a form of 'state terrorism.' By contrast, the Military Junta considered it the only way to restore a sense of order and stability in Argentinian society, a sense that was indeed lost during the turbulence of the 60s and 70. In this period, characterized by a general disbelief in democratic forms of government and recurrent financial crises, antagonisms between left- wing and right-wing parties were heightened. Successive coups d' état by military and civilians (1955, 1962 and 1966) and increased participation of the youth in urban guerrilla movements, such as Montoneros and Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP), discredited the belief in the rule of law (Miguez, 2016; Vezzetti, 2002). As Argentina made its transition to democracy in 1983, the elected president, Raul Alfonsín, transformed the families’ search for the disappeared into a quest for justice. For a short period of time, both the government and social movements agreed that the foundation of a new democratic order should disassemble the repressive state apparatus in the courts. Alfonsín created aNational Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) which published the official report about the Human Rights violations committed by the military dictatorship and entitled it Nunca Más (Never More). Moreover, Alfonsín signed Decree No.158 a measure that ratified legal proceedings against nine of the former junta members and established a National Court to prosecute them, and members of other guerrilla groups who were responsible for the violence lived between the 60s and 80s. The Trial of the Juntas (1985), though frowned upon by some sectors of society, left an indelible mark on the collective imagination and became the foundational act of Argentina's contemporary democracy (Cultura Argentina, n.d.; Romero, 2012; Van Drunen, 2010; Vezzetti, 2002). Nevertheless, the newly established republic was fragile and both the persistence of economic instability and political pressures from civilian and military groups that had served during the dictatorship (ex. Carapintadas), foreclosed the possibility of legitimizing the rule of law. By the end of his government in 1989, Alfonsín had signed the laws Punto Final (23.492 of 1986) and Obediencia Debida (23.521 of 1987) through which the government officially stopped the prosecutions against the military and guerrilla members found responsible for violations. Moreover, Alfonsín's resignation amidst hyperinflation and social animosity enabled the following president, Carlos Menem, to sign ten presidential pardons in 1989 and 1990 revoking the need for accountability and neutralizing the rebellious sectors within the

military forces that were provoking social upheaval (Romero, 2012). Menem’s claim was that the victims’, survivors’ and relatives’ need for accountability blocked the possibility of reconciling with the past because it kept the wounds open and deepened polarization. In this case, pardons were “understood as part of a broader program of ‘eradication of resentment’ […] however, like in many Latin American countries, reconciliation became a code for impunity” (Van Drunen, 2010, p. 85) For the following years, victim and solidarity organizations, later combined under the umbrella term ‘Human Rights organizations’, challenged the state's law of silence and struggled to reverse the rules that had pardoned military officials and kept the crimes of the past unpunished. These groups joined forces during the dictatorship to publicly denounce the state's rule of silence and actively search for the whereabouts of the disappeared in police stations, churches, ministries and international organizations. Solidarity organizations, mainly composed of social scientists, as well as lawyers and politically engaged churchmen, provided relatives and victims with legal assistance. They filed each of the disappearance cases reported by the families and published lists in the newspapers to demonstrate the state's complicity in the criminal acts (Van Drunen, 2010, p. 50). Victim associations, on the other hand, defied the juntas through public acts of resistance such as the weekly demonstrations of mothers of the disappeared in the Plaza de Mayo. The relatives’ appeal to blood ties, instead of political affiliations, made it difficult for the military to claim them as ´subversive elements´ and to openly attack the movement. As a result of their combined actions during the dictatorship, these two groups became leading actors in the accountability process of post-Dictatorship Argentina. In the production of CONADEP’S official report about the disappearance labeled as Nunca Más as well as in the Trial of the Juntas, these organizations provided researchers and judges with the testimonies and documentation required to prosecute the military.7 Since then organizations like League for the Rights of Men (Liga), Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH), Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ), Centre for Legal Studies (CELS) and Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights (MEDH) and victim associations such as Family members of Disappeared-Detainees (Familiares), Abuelas, and Madres of the Plaza de Mayo motivated the search for Justice,

7 Even when it does not stand as such, CONADEP stands as the first modern-day Truth Commission. However, the investigatory model is associated with the response adopted in post-apartheid South Africa in the 1990s since it was the first one to employ the term (Teitel, 2014).

Truth and Reparation (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, Dic 15 2014)8. Together with post-dictatorial victim and solidarity organizations such as Ex-Detainee/Disappeared Association (AEDD), H.I.J.O.S, Argentinian Historical and Social Memory Foundation, these groups mobilized citizens in their resistance against promoted silence and impunity. For these groups, the lack of reform to the security forces, and the fact that many who had benefited economically or politically from the repression continued to play significant roles in the democratic administration, proved the fragility of the rule of law. In this context, to combat impunity was not only to keep the memories of the victims alive but to fight against the lack of justice for ordinary citizens who could be vulnerable to new form of state violence (Van Drunen, 2010). In 2003, with the advent of president Ernesto Kirchner, the official discourse about the Dictatorship changed and Duty of Memory became an official state policy. As a former prisoner of an SDC and opponent of Menem's abuses of presidential powers, Kirchner decided to make the addressing of the unsolved crimes of the Dictatorship a central part of his political agenda (Feld, 2017). The National Congress supported this approach towards the past. That year, the Congress annulled the laws Obediencia Debida, Punto Final, and the presidential pardons by declaring them anti-constitutional. Meanwhile, Kirchner revoked the legal measures that prohibited the extradition of military officers accused of Human Rights abuses. Both legal actions gave the state and the victim's organizations the ability to re-initiate the trials against the perpetrators and collaborators that had been foreclosed since the Trial of the Juntas (Lessa, 2017). This legal opening gave way to new case trials, now called Megacausas which collected extensive evidence and gathered testimonies from ex-detainees, relatives and solidarity organizations to legitimate their claims (Lakitsch, 2014). These legal proceedings are entitled as "mega" because they carry out collective trials prosecuting according to the crime committed or its location: imprisonment, torture, disappearance in SDC’s such as Olimpo, Atlético, etc. (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, n.d.-d). One of the main Megacausas was enacted in 2007 by the Supreme Court to research and prosecute the Human Rights violations that had taken place in the ESMA.

8 In 1986, after an internal dispute over the state’s exhumation of NN graves, economic reparations to victims and the leadership of the mother Hebe de Bonafini, the Mother’s Plaza De Mayo group split into two. The half commanded by Bonafini kept the name Mothers de la Plaza de Mayo while the twelve members that left the association christened their new group Madres L.F (Mothers- Foundational Line-L.F.), since most of them had formed part of the social movement at the moment of its creation in 1977 (Forcinito, 2004; International Institute of Social History, n.d.)

This Megacausa has been divided into four different trials of which three have already returned a verdict. In order to facilitate collection processes for the Megacausas, the government sanctioned a decree in which a National Archive of Memory was created to safeguard any documentation related to the Human Rights violations committed during 1976 and 1983. Furthermore, the government also enacted a law (26.691) and two decrees (1986/2014 and 1259/03) in which former centers of detention and torture are now legally conceived of as Memory Sites. This implies that the state is responsible for preserving the material memory of the Military Dictatorship to assist in any ‘’judicial investigations of grave Human Right violations” committed in this period (SAIJ, 2011). The Argentinian government does not have a specific Victims Law. Despite the state points out that since 1994 a specific set of individuals have been able to apply and receive economical reparations for the suffering through the laws 24.411, 24.043 and 26.564 (República Argentina, n.d.). Their categorization agrees with what the Human Rights organizations consider a victim within the Argentinian context, that is, those individuals whose rights were violated by the 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976 dictatorial regimes. Those who can apply for compensation are: 1) any civilian who was detained and disappeared between the 16th of June of 1955 and the 9th of December 1983, 2) any civilian who has been injured or has died in the hands of any security, police or paramilitary forces in the uprisings of the 16th of June 1955 and the 16th September, 1955, 3) any family member of a disappeared civilian, 4) any child who has been born in prison or whose parents have been detained and 5) any civilian judged in a Drumhead court and detained for political reasons between 1974 and 1983 (Solís Delgadillo, 2015). Moreover, the president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner drafted and signed a bill in 2010 which intended to ratify the right of individuals and groups to the historical memory of the Dictatorship, as well as the state's obligation to preserve this memory. The law was meant to expand the Archive's access to the confidential information of military intelligence. However, the bill was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies (Página/12, 2015). The state compensated for the absence of this law by subscribing to the Mercosur IPPDH guidelines on public policies with regards to the management of Sites of Memory:

"Deber de Memoria. The obligation States have of arranging effective mechanisms to investigate and, eventually, sanction and judge the alleged responsible for human rights violations as well as guaranteeing the rights to truth, memory, and integral

reparation. It is important to note that these obligations are not alternative or selective. That is, the state cannot choose only one of them and discard the rest" (Mercosur IPPDH, 2012, p. 7).9

The subscription to the Mercosur guidelines, along with the economic compensations, laws and decrees ratified by Ernesto Kirchner show that Duty of Memory has become an official state policy as a way to acknowledge both the victims, survivors and relatives’ loss and the work Human Rights groups have done to counteract impunity and its effects on present-day political configurations. Thus, the materialization of Duty of Memory, through the transformation of SDC’s into Site of Memory, as well as the creation of archives and regional commissions, responds to a need to preserve the traces of crime and avoid any form of historical negation in the name of reconciliation. In Colombia's case, Duty of Memory seeks to determine the causes of Colombia’s armed conflict and learn the truth beneath major Human Rights violations in order to curtail its ongoing presence. According to the three Academic Commissions which have analyzed the conflict, its roots trace back to the 1946-1958 bipartisan conflict labeled as La Violencia (The Violence).10 Dispossession and appropriation of lands by the bipartisan self-armed groups, limited political opportunities and lack of employment for the displaced farmers in the cities led many citizens to resort to military ends or illegal economic activities, such as smuggling and drug trafficking. Between the 60s and 80s, five important guerrilla groups consolidated their presence in the territory: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the 19th of April Movement (M-19), the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Popular

9 Translated from Spanish by the author. “Los Estados tienen la obligación de disponer de mecanismos efectivos para investigar y eventualmente juzgar y sancionar a presuntos responsables de dichas violaciones, así como de garantizar los derechos a la verdad, a la memoria y la reparación integral. Cabe destacar que estas obligaciones del Estado no son alternativas o selectivas, esto es, no puede elegirse una o más de ellas para su cumplimiento, descartando las otras” (Mercosur IPPDH, 2012, p. 7). 10 Historically, three academic Commissions have become the leading interpreters of violence in Colombia. The names of the investigating bodies are: La Investigadora in 1958 (The Researcher), Comisión de estudios sobre la violencia in 1987 (Study Commission about Violence) and Grupo Nacional de Memoria Histórica (National Historical Memory Group) from 2007 to the present. The Researcher dealt with La Violencia (1946- 1965) and the fight between Liberal and conservative parties. The Study Commission, analyzed the proliferation of criminal enterprises that pursued political and economical motives and employed direct aggression to threaten and eliminate individuals and social groups in the 80s and 90s. Finally, the National Historical Memory Group explains the emergence of guerrilla insurrectional warfare and the legal and illegal responses offered by the state and the paramilitary, as well as monitoring the demobilization of illegal armed groups and the reparation of victims (Allier, E., & Crenzel, 2015).

Liberation Army (EPL) and the Quintín Lame Armed Movement (MAQL). Additionally, guerrilla self-defense groups, later labeled ‘Paramilitary Organizations’, strengthened their power with the support of wealthy landowners and drug cartels in the 80s (ex. Death to Kidnappers- MAS). The revenues provided by cocaine exportation strengthened both guerrilla warfare and organized crime and led to the persecution of political leaders, public personalities, and academics. By the beginning of the 1990s, the bipartisan conflict had transformed into a complex “interlinking of guerrilla warfare, dirty war and organized crime, the war on drugs, and the prevalence of social/everyday violence” which has had and continues to have a strongly destabilizing power in Colombia (Riano-Alcala, 2006, p. 5). The term ‘internal armed conflict’ has become widely accepted in both academia and the state to designate this interlinking (Comisión Histórica del Conflicto y sus víctimas, February 2015). This concept signifies a series of collective armed actions within a nation between governmental and non- governmental forces, but does not imply a complete collapse of the state (Pécaut, 2001). Additionally, this definition coheres to the 1949 Geneva Convention’s distinction between the concept of international and non-international armed conflicts (ICRC, 2014). Since guerrilla and paramilitary groups, as well as military forces and organized crime gangs, are involved in the confrontation, there is not one single expression of violence but an extensive repertory of Human Rights violations. While the paramilitaries have turned to massacres and forced disappearances, the guerrillas have primarily relied upon kidnappings, terrorist attacks, forced recruitment and loss of immovable property. Infringing International Humanitarian Law, armed forces have sometimes also resorted to torture, arbitrary detention, targeted killings and disappearances in order to mark territorial control. Finally, criminal gangs employ all the aforementioned violations, excluding the loss of movable and immovable property, land dispossession or anti-personnel mines. Most of these confrontations have taken place in the rural areas and city slums of Colombia, where state absence and poverty make it easier for illegal armed forces to assert their control over the population and go mostly unnoticed by those living in the main urban centers:

hWar has been waged mostly in the countryside of Colombia, in the hamlets, villages and municipalities, far off and distant from the central country or large cities. It is a war that many Colombians do not see, do not feel, a war that does not threaten them. A war of which they have notice through the lens of the media, which others suffer

and which allows thousands of people to live in the illusion that the country enjoys prosperity and full democracy […] (GMH, 2013, p. 22).11

Even when overlooked by many, these armed actions continue to drive the conflict and severely impact the social tissue. The figures speak for themselves. Recent registries show that only between 1982 and 2012, the conflict has registered over 220,000 homicides, 95 terrorist attacks, 154 massacres, 5,7 million victims of forced displacement, 25,007 disappearances, 23,154 targeted assassinations, 27,000 kidnappings, 10,000 victims of anti- personnel mines and 1,754 victims of sexual assault (GMH, 2013). Conflict has also left its mark in the political sphere since armed actors have gradually infiltrated local and regional governmental bodies, establishing a nexus with politicians through bribery, cooptation or fear, increasing corruption and decreasing citizens’ belief in official institutions (Comisión Histórica del Conflicto y sus Víctimas, 2015; Londoňo, 2013). Within this turbulent context, Human Rights organizations have striven to remain united amidst the constant threat from the armed groups that tend to silence dissenting voices. These groups have undertaken three major roles: protecting human lives, encouraging democratic forms of participation and political empowerment of communities affected by the conflict and raising awareness within society to discourage the use of violence. Similar to Argentina, Human Rights organizations are made up of victim organizations (relatives and survivors) as well as solidarity groups of syndicalists, intellectuals, and social workers. As in other Latin American countries, solidarity associations formed in the late seventies precisely following Argentina’s example and implemented some of their strategies to question the state’s involvement and negligence towards the conflict. However, grassroots organizations, religious congregations and international NGOs have played a more predominant role in Colombia’s struggle for Justice, Truth and Reparation since activist identity emerged from the political culture of the communist and Catholic institutions, as well as the external appeal to international standards of justice (Tate, 2007). Moreover, victim associations did not signal the beginning of Human Rights movement in the country, since most of these groups flourished within or as a response to the work of solidarity organizations in the

11 Translated from Spanish by the author: La guerra se ha librado mayoritariamente en el campo colombia, en los caseríos, veredas y municipios, lejanos y apartados del país central o de las grandes ciudades. Es una guerra que muchos colombianos no ven, no sienten, una guerra que no los amenaza. Una guerra de la que se tienen noticias a través del lente de los medios de comunicación, que sufren otros y que permite a miles de personas vivir en la ilusión de que el país goza de democracia plena y prosperidad (GMH, 2013).

regions (Comite ́ Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, 2004). Nevertheless, these groups have acquired more visibility in Colombia’s political sphere since the 2000s, and along with intellectuals and Human Rights advocates, demand that the state redress the damage caused by acknowledging their right to clarification, economic compensation, land restitution and commemoration initiatives. On various occasions the state has attempted to find a negotiated solution to the conflict with both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas. These attempts took place between 1990-1994, 1998-2002, 2003-2006 and 2012-2016. One of these has achieved the partial demobilization of three major paramilitary groups (AUC, Cacique Nutibara and Bloque Metro) between 2003 and 2006. This process has since been referred to as the Justice and Peace agreement. The remaining negotiations have been made separately with each of the four guerrilla groups in the territory: M-19 (1989), EPL (1991), MAQL (1991) and FARC (2016). All five agreements have included the disarmament process and the reintegration of illegal groups into civilian life. However only once the Justice and Peace Law was ratified in 2005 were the rights of victims acknowledged and Duty of Memory become part of the state’s reparation strategy. In the articles 5 and 56 of Law 975 of 2005, the Justice and Peace Law defined victims as all civilians or members of the military forces who have suffered either direct damage from a violent act committed by illegal armed groups, or indirect damage through the killing or disappearance of a family member. They have the right to know the truth about the crimes committed, the whereabouts of their loved ones and the reasons why the violations took place. Within the clarification process, the state is now endowed with the task of explaining to its victims the historical causes, dynamics, and consequences involved in the armed conflict. Henceforth, the state should guarantee the victims access to justice as well as “foster restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and […] guarantees of non-repetition behavior" (República de Colombia, 2005, p. 10). Through Law 975 the Colombian state gave in to the plea of Human Rights advocates to consider the process of reparation and restitution for the victims as key elements in decreasing the prevalence of violence and encouraging structural changes in society that would pave a road to long-lasting peace. In order to fulfill the victim’s rights, as well as demobilization and reinsertion of paramilitary members into society, Article 50 of this same law created the National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation (CNRR). This Commission was to last for eight years and was divided into different sub-commissions, one of them being the sub-commission on Historical Memory. Named the Historical Memory

Group (GMH), this entity gathered social scientists, lawyers, social workers and photojournalists, such as director Gónzalo Sánchez, with experience working on armed conflict, to construct a historical account of Human Rights violations in areas affected by the mass killings perpetrated by paramilitaries and guerrillas (Altuzarra, 2011; González Jácome, 2007). In order to produce reports on exemplary cases of violations, the GMH approached victims and Human Rights groups “to collect their testimonies, legitimate the process of reconstructing historical memory and activate or support local processes of truth telling. Victims became documentary sources and participants in the processes of characterizing these damages”(Alcalá & Uribe, 2016, p. 15).12 Furthermore, along with other sub-commissions, the GMH created a pilot scheme of collective reparations in which marginalized communities (farmers, syndicalists and ethnic groups) were entitled to benefit from additional material, symbolic and political forms of reparations (Unidad de victímas, n.d.). Initially, the GMH would cease to exist along with the CNRR in 2010. However, through the implementation of the Law 1448 of 2011, known as Victims’ Law, the government created a National System for the Attention and Integral Reparation for the Victims (SNARIV) and transformed the GMH into the National Centre for Historical Memory (CNMH). As a result of this law, the CNMH has assumed new roles. It is now responsible for the publication of reports on violations, and for the musealization and pedagogization of the past intended for future generations. Since then, the organization has reached a wider public by capturing the victims’ outlook on war through educational products, seminaries and temporary exhibits. However, its biggest project is the establishment of a National Museum of Memory. In order to carry out this project, the CNMH has arranged more than a hundred regional meetings and oral history workshops, establishing a wide network of alliances with Human Rights groups and stimulating the construction of memory landmarks around the different regions of Colombia (Museo Nacional de la Memoria, 2017)(See Appendix AB). Additionally, this law has refined the concept of victim to include both individuals and groups whose Human Rights have been violated in the context of the armed conflict after January 1st, 1985 (Presidencia de la República & Congreso Nacional, 2011). They can seek

12 The reports and investigations published by the GMH between 2005-2010 were: Trujillo: A tragedy that does not cease (2008), Remember to Narrate the conflict (2009), Memories in Times of War (2009), El Salado: That war was not ours (2009), Land in Dispute (2010), Bahía Portete Massacre. Wayuu women on the look (2010), La Rochela. Memories of a crime against justice (2010), Bojayá. A war without limits (2010), A history of peace to tell, retell and not forget (2010) and Concepts and Tools of Historical Memory from a Gender Perspective (2010).

justice and reparation if they have endured one or more of a list of twelve victimizing facts. These are threat, torture, kidnapping, homicide, forced disappearance, displacement, youth recruitment, loss of movable and immovable property, land dispossession, anti-personnel mines, offenses against sexual integrity and terrorist attacks (Unidad de victímas, 2017). From then onwards, any official organization which wishes to narrate the conflict has to take this categorization into account. For example, the latest comprehensive report of the armed conflict produced by the CNMH named Basta ya! (Enough!) has included this classification within its analysis (GMH, 2013). However, it is still uncertain if future memorialization initiatives will be grouped according to the victimization facts they respond to. There is still no consensus as to how much and in what ways these projects should comply with the goals established by the law in order to fulfill the state’s Duty of Memory (Unidad para las víctimas, 2015). Overall, the most relevant fact is that within the Victims’ Law, Duty of Memory is not only limited to the timeline of a peace treaty, as with the Justice and Peace agreement. That is, Duty of Memory has acquired a permanent status, signaling the beginning of a new relationship of society with its past and present. Undoubtedly, Human RIghts groups in Argentina and Colombia have played a key role in determining the role painful pasts should assume in the present of their societies, enhancing democratic forms of participation and encouraging institutional reforms that prevent the recurrence of violent events (Allier, E., & Crenzel, 2015). Following Jelin (2002), these Human Rights groups can be considered ‘memory entrepreneurs’ because they act as figures who "mobilize their energies around the past as a common cause to call attention to certain deviant behaviors and fight to prevent its repetition" (p.79).13 Nonetheless, in Argentina’s case, the implementation of Duty of Memory as a state policy was a result of a series of disputes between the state’s repeated attempts to pardon the violations committed by the military and the Human Rights groups opposition to such measures. In Colombia, this framework is a result of negotiations between the armed actors and the state that has been endorsed by the latter through the mediation of Human rights groups working within and outside official entities. Therefore, the historical trajectory of these groups and the relationship they have established with the State has shaped Duty of Memory into two different approaches even when both are products of TJS and the Memory, Truth and Justice paradigm.

13 Translated from Spanish by the author. “[…] es quien llama la atención del público sobre ciertas conductas vistas como desviadas, movilizan sus energías en función de una causa relacionada con el pasado y buscan incidir para evitar su repetición” (Jelin, 2002, p. 79).

On the one hand, Human Rights groups emphasis on condemning State terrorism and implementing legal accountability on behalf of the disappeared-detainees in Argentina is closer to the Retributive Justice model (Conflict Solutions Center, n.d.; Gooley, 2012). The focus of reparation is placed on preserving the traces of crime and pressuring the criminal justice system to establish blame for these past abuses because social groups believe punishment to be an effective measure in deterring violence and validating the rule of law. Measures that focus on reconciliation, due to Alfonsín’s and Menem’s setbacks on accountability, are equated with amnesty and impunity. By contrast, Colombia’s longstanding conflict and the simultaneous involvement of diverse armed actors that feed on the country's social, political and economic inequalities, has led the state to lean towards a more Restorative approach when considering reparation. Within this model, the state understands that punishment alone will not be effective in curtailing violence or repairing the damage caused to the social networks. Crime goes beyond an individual dimension of responsibility and reparation is based on encouraging dialogue, negotiation and restoration of the bonds of trust, both between civilians and between civilians and the state (Uprimny & Saffon, 2006). Regardless of their differences, it cannot be said that the two countries embrace either a ‘pure’ Retributive or Restorative model, as that would suggest either that Colombia has disregarded the need for accountability completely or that Argentina has not pondered on the collective dimensions of responsibility for its painful past. They both exhibit a mixed approach on the spectrum between Retributive and Restorative justice models in which victims assume a prominent role and determine the direction and outcome of the TJS and the role of Duty of Memory within it. It is interesting that that difference between Colombia’s and Argentina’s approach to justice is immediately visible when one turns to examine the museological projects they have produced. In this respect, the Memory House Museum (MHM) in Medellín and the Space of Memory and Human Rights (SMHR) in Buenos Aires stand out as good points of departure to examine how this shared framework has resulted in two different outcomes.

Retaking control of a Secret Detention Center

The Navy-Petty Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA) is a complex of thirty-four buildings covering approximately fourteen and a half acres of land. The land was sold to the City Council in 1904, and handed over to the Navy in 1924 with the purpose of building a military

training school (Bishop, 2014; Brodsky, 2005). The ESMA is located in the neighborhood of Núñez on the northern bank of the river Plata, one the four wealthiest comunas (district) of the city of Buenos Aires. Its proximity to a residential area, and the visibility of its sumptuous architecture along one of the principal thoroughfares of Buenos Aires, made it difficult for citizens to imagine that the complex housed one of the biggest SDCs in the country (Arnold- de Simine, 2013). This disbelief was accurately depicted in Walter Goobar’s statement, “The ESMA was the only place in which, if you ask people in the street if it used to be a concentration camp, people will respond 'The ESMA? Why?’ It is a well-known building; everybody has seen the ESMA at least once’’ (Levey, 2016, p. 157)(See Appendix A. Map of Buenos Aires). During the Dictatorship, approximately 5,000 prisoners were detained in the ESMA. Therefore, it was no surprise to find that the School’s facilities figured prominently in CONADEP's Nunca Más report. Since then, the building's relationship with the military juntas was consolidated in the public opinion, but this did not lead to an immediate change in its use. In post-dictatorship times, the ESMA resumed its former use as a Naval school. While this act could be seen as evidence of the state's refusal to confront the crime, at that time victims’ organizations did not consider the retake of the ESMA as a necessary component of their fight for justice and truth. When the first initiatives to commemorate the disappeared through a museum were designed, the idea of transforming former SDC's into museological institutions was not seriously considered. In fact, when solidarity organizations, such as Memoria Abierta, or city councilors proposed three different museum projects, House of the Disappeared (1990), Museum of memory and Nunca Más (1997) and Work Commission for the Foundation of a Museum of Memory (1999), all three proposed locations were outside of military spaces (Guglielmucci, 2013; Van Drunen, 2010). Only one project, in 1995, suggested that the former SDC of El Olimpo in Buenos Aires become a Museum of Memory, and it was met with opposition from both the Head of the Federal Police and members of the city council (Jensen, K., 2007). Regardless of their differences, the four projects failed either because Human Rights groups could not reach a consensus or because victim organizations such as AEDD, Familiares, H.I.J.O.S and Madres of the Plaza opposed the projects, asking "How was our problem to become a museum?" (Van Drunen, 2010, p. 249). However, the state's decision to symbolically erase the detention centers from Argentina's landscape through active destruction or neglect led Human Rights organizations to consider turning these places into memory markers in order to maintain

the traces of the dictatorship. In 1998, Carlos Menem signed a decree to move the Mechanics School to a Naval Base in the southwestern city of Bahía Blanca. Left unoccupied, the president planned to destroy the ESMA to construct a new green space in which a monument of 'national union' was to stand for reconciliation with the past (Feld, 2017). Condemning this measure, two relatives of the disappeared presented a legal demand to suspend the decree arguing that the state was obligated to protect buildings which constituted evidence in judicial cases against Human Rights violations. Former Buenos Aires governor Fernando de la Rúa also filed a lawsuit requesting the devolution of the territory, as it had been ceded by the city council in 1924 on condition that it would serve an 'educational purpose'. Were the terrain to take on any other function, it was to be returned to the City Council (Van Drunen, 2010, p. 253). Ultimately the Supreme Court validated the victims’ and governor's demands and declared Menem's decree unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Menem’s attempt alarmed Human rights organizations. The need to recover the SDC, as well to reify the memories of Human Right abuses and their victims, became more urgent due to the state's repeated attempts to cover up the traces of crime under the pretext of ‘reconciliation’ (CHAT, 2017). Therefore, in 2001 the former director of the city council, Gabriela Alegre, gave the museum project a new chance. In alliance with the Secretariat of Cultural Heritage and Education, Alegre involved Human Rights groups in the drafting of Law 961/02 that would promote the consolidation of an institution focused on communicating the "memory and history of the events that took place during the period of state Terrorism (...)"(Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2002). Instead of using the word 'museum' the law referred to a 'space' of memory and human rights. This change was motivated by the association of the museum concept with 'static,' 'immovable' and 'unchanging' memories. To Human Rights associations, the idea of a 'museum' legitimized the military's version of events that all the disappeared should be presumed as dead, and therefore, was detrimental to the Human Rights aim of keeping the images of the disappeared as ghostly presences (Parsons, 2011, p. 88). Within the law, the official entity responsible for arranging all the activities within the Space was designated as the Institute Space for Memory (IEM) (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2014a). The associations that joined the Secretariat and became part of IEM were Madres-L.F., SERPAJ, APDH, MEDH, Hermanos and la Liga. Other important associations such as H.I.J.O.S, Madres of the Plaza and AEDD did not participate because they were still reluctant to work with state institutions.

Moreover, Article 10 of the Law 961/02 announced that the IEM would have its permanent location within the ESMA as soon as the lawsuit between the Navy and the City Council had been resolved (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2002).14 When the IEM was legalized in 2003 and Kirchner had signed the agreement to relocate the Navy and create the SMHR, opposition came from relatives and sympathizers of the military and the policemen. The groups thought that the consolidation of the project would create a one- sided account of the past (Delli-Zotti, 2016). Organizations such as Association for Families and Friends of the Political Prisoners of Argentina (AFyAPPA) and Complete Memory (MC), were formed to defend the military view of repression as a justified war against the insurgency, and to accompany members of the military who were being prosecuted by the state. Although the below viewpoint was only formally declared retrospectively, it summarizes the opposition of AFyAPPA and MC to the project:

“The pain of the loss of a loved one blocks the serenity and objectivity to judge the past. It is comprehensible that those who had been affected by the [repressive] violence would take sides. But the lack of objectivity and factionalism of private and public institutions who are responsible for educating young people who did not witness those times is incomprehensible [...] This bias has reached intellectual, journalistic and political circles and it is imposed on classrooms and universities. With the slogan "memory, justice and punishment to the culprits," an enormous pressure towards justice has evolved, dedicating it to the prosecution of only one of the parties involved. The progress towards reconciliation that had been given through the Obediencia Debida and Punto Final had been undone with their annulation"(La Nación, 2012).15

14 The Law 961 ratified both the creation of the SMHR and the IEM directive. However, it was not necessary to join the IEM in order to be part of the SMRH. This is demonstrated by the presence of H.I.J.O.S and Madres of the Plaza headquarters within the SMHR. 15 Translated from Spanish by the author “El dolor que la pérdida de un ser querido deja de por vida impide la objetividad y serenidad para evaluar el pasado. Esto es comprensible en quienes han sido afectados por aquella violencia, sean de uno o de otro bando. Pero la falta de objetividad y la parcialidad no son comprensibles en instituciones públicas o privadas responsables de educar a quienes, por su juventud, no fueron testigos de aquello [...] Esta sesgada visión ha alcanzado hoy a diversos sectores de la intelectualidad, del periodismo y de la política, y se impone en las aulas de escuelas y universidades. Con el lema "Memoria, juicio y castigo a los culpables", se ha desarrollado una enorme presión sobre la Justicia, volcándola hacia el juzgamiento de solo una de las partes. Los avances hacia la reconciliación que se habían dado con las leyes de obediencia debida, de punto final y los indultos fueron desandados con la anulación [...] (La Nación, 2012).

Even when these associations did not manage to change state policies regarding the transformation of the ESMA into SMHR, the Navy’s refusal to evacuate the whole precinct by the 2005 deadline, delayed the inauguration of the space for two more years. Wanting to at least partially comply with the agreement, the City Council handed over seven of the thirty-four buildings of the ESMA, four of which had been used as an SDC, to the IEM at the end of 2004 (Brodsky, 2005, p. 228). These were, the Casino de Oficiales, Cuatro Columnas, the Infirmary, Jefatura de Guardia, Quincho, Casino de suboficiales and Casa de Suboficiales II (See appendix B). Tensions between the various organizations arose because all of the Human Rights organizations, except CELS, refused to carry out any activities while the Navy was still working within the School. The idea of sharing space with the military was inadmissible on both ethical and political grounds. They considered that crimes were still too fresh to make coexistence possible, feared provocations from the marines if they started working immediately within the plot and equated any act of coming together as a tacit approval of reconciliatory measures (Van Drunen, 2010). When the human rights organizations disagreed with CELS’s approach, the group responded by stating that the military should be one of the main audiences SMHR should speak to, since it would encourage the new generation of the military to reflect critically on their past role. The historian Hugo Vezzetti agreed with CELS action plan by explaining that “excluding the armed forces from the debate had the risk of reinforcing the ghetto in which the armed forces live and are educated, disconnected from the necessary discussion on their history and responsibilities” (Vezzetti, 2002, p. 41). Unable to reconcile the differences of opinion, CELS abstained from signing any documents in which Human Rights organizations refused to share the School with the Navy, and gradually distanced itself from the SMHR project (Van Drunen, 2010). Meanwhile, the Human Rights groups opted to use Siluetazo as a temporary spatial intervention on the perimeter railings while they waited for the military to completely abandon the site (Levey, 2016). In 2007, the Navy finally evacuated the entire terrain of the ESMA and, in an expression of resistance and disagreement, took with them all the door handles and air conditioning devices of the buildings (Andermann, 2012; Van Drunen, 2010). However, the SMHR project was now irreversible. The first organizations to begin operating within the SMHR were the National Memory Archive (2007) and the Cultural Center Haroldo Conti (2008), both administered by the Secretary of Human Rights (See Appendix B: B and Q). In 2008 The Mothers de la Plaza de Mayo became the first victims´ association to move into

the Ex-ESMA (Solis,́ D. J. M, 2015). Other local, national and sub-regional institutions such as Center for Ecumenical Coexistence Patrick Rice (2010), the Public Broadcasting Service-TV Pública (2011), the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) (2011), the Institution for Public Policy in Human Rights-Mercosur (2009), followed suit (Appendix B: C, D, L and N) (Página/12, 2010). Once the buildings had undergone restorative measures, Memoria Abierta & Familiares (2014), Abuelas (2014) were able to move into the terrain and the ‘White Scarfs Salon’ (2014) was opened to the public (Appendix B: J, G and P) (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2014d). The year 2014 also marked the inauguration of the Malvinas Museum in a brand-new building dedicated to honoring the lives of the soldiers who fought against the United Kingdom over the Falkland islands in 1982 (Appendix B: M). The latest newcomers to the precinct were two victims’ organizations, Madres L.F. and H.I.J.O.S, and two official institutions: the headquarters of the Secretary of Human Rights and the Museum Site of Memory ESMA (Appendix B: E, O, F and 1). All these spaces were inaugurated in 2015. Until 2014, the IEM administered the SMHR as an autarkic but mixed entity which involved representatives of the city of Buenos Aires and civil society (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2002). The entity was in charge of supervising and coordinating all activities taking place on the terrain. In 2015, the Buenos Aires Legislative Department voted to dissolve the IEM and transfer the SMHR from the jurisdiction of the city to the national government. It argued that the change would help the initiatives developed by the SMHR and other former SDC's become a permanent component of the state’s (Levey, 2016, p. 186). “In this way we secure the participation of Human Rights organizations [in the National state] and a plurality of voices”, declared Alegre, the former city councilor who had supported creation of the IEM through the Law 961/02 (Página/12, 2014)16. Since then, the Public Entity Space for Memory (Public Entity), made up of three representatives from the executive, the city of Buenos Aires and the Human Rights organizations, has been established as the official spokesman of the SMHR. Additionally, the Public Entity is now responsible for managing five of the buildings that made up part of the SDC: The Cuatro Columnas, Casino de Oficiales, the Printing Press, the Auto Service Shops and the Infirmary. The Human Right groups that made up the IEM have opposed this new agreement seeing it as the state’s attempt to limit SMHR’s autarkic character and subject it to the partisan changes in the executive that could, at any given moment, bring down the project (La

16 Translated from Spanish by the author: “lo mejor que podemos hacer es que los sitios pasen a la órbita nacional, porque hay una política de Estado que va a trascender. No hacemos politiquería barata con los derechos humanos, sino que trabajamos por las políticas del Estado de memoria” (Página/12, 2014).

Retaguardia, 2014). Nevertheless, until now the Human Rights organizations in the SMHR have continued to have full control over the themes and activities they carry out in their allocations. Perhaps the most significant change brought about by the Public Entity within the SMHR has been the transformation of the SDC Casino de Oficiales into a Museum. Although many associations, particularly the AEDD, express concern that the project modifies the material traces of the crimes committed and trivializes the suffering experienced at the SDC, the museum has taken into account the fact that the building is also legal evidence for the Megacausa ESMA. Therefore, it has carried out only preventive restoration measures and has installed removable panels and banners that do not alter the original structure of the Casino (Van Drunen, 2010).17 The Printing Press, the Auto Service Shops, the Infirmary and the Cuatro Columnas buildings have also remained unaltered, although the Infirmary and Cuatro Columnas house external artistic projects or lend their space to the Human Rights groups present in the SMHR to display temporary exhibitions or educational workshops for students and adults.

The Bicentennial Park and the MHM project

Without any doubt, Medellín is the only city in Colombia which has experienced simultaneously each of the violent phenomenons associated with the armed conflict, from the emergence of the drug economy and the military hegemony of the Medellín Cartel in the 80s and 90s, to the confrontation of left-wing guerrilla-funded militias and right-wing bloques allied with paramilitary groups at the start of the XXIst century (L. F. Dávila, 2016). Recent statistics demonstrate that the Antioquia department, whose capital is Medellín, has been the region of Colombia most harshly affected by the conflict. Between 1985 and 2015, 1,875,984 victimizing facts have been registered, way above other affected Departments such as Bolívar (649.339) and Valle del Cauca (510.303) (El Tiempo, 2017a). It remains the only city in Colombia to have endured large scale military operations such as Otoño, Contrafuego, Orión, Mariscal and Antorcha (La Silla Vacía, August 25 201 & Museo Casa de la memoria, n.d).

17 The skepticism expressed by some organizations towards the IEM was increased by the fact that the museum had been approved without consulting them. In the end, the Human Rights associations that collaborated with the museum were: CELS, Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, Madres L.F., Buena Memoria Asociación, Familiares, Fundación Memoria Histórica y Social Argentina, H.I.J.O.S., and Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre (LADH) (Busnelli Arquitectura, n.d.)

All of these operations have taken place in Medellín’s poorest comunas where ineffective state control has made homicide, kidnappings, forced disappearance and displacement a common practice by which militias, the paramilitary and criminal gangs display their power (Melo, 1995) (See Appendix C). With homicides reaching a total of 6,809 in the year 1992 and Medellín officially becoming the ‘murder capital of the world’, both the national government, the municipality and the solidarity organizations were focused on containing Medellín’s crisis by reducing homicide rates and strengthening security (L. F. Dávila, 2016; Hylton, 2007; Melo, 1995). However, security was not enough to address Medelllín’s deep-rooted social, political and economic problems. Over the course of Sergio Fajardo’s (2004-2007) mayoral service, the municipality started to consider additional alternatives to counteracting crime, poverty and social fragmentation through urban planning and innovation, education and Juntas de Accción Comunal (Community Action Boards) that strengthened local forms of governability (Hylton, 2007). Thanks to the ideas of many social workers and urban planners, Medellín decided to think, “in terms not of top-down policy, but of one that would begin with the poorest neighbourhoods and re-conquer spaces that had been lost to violence; it was both a concept and a physical strategy, a mixture of ideas and bricks” (Vulliamy, 2013). Fajardo’s goal was to give life to projects that would turn Medellín into a site of social equality, communal living and integration and transform it into a pleasant, safe and aesthetically pleasing metropolis. Under the slogan “Medellín, the most educated”, the municipality directed more funding to public schools and started the Youth with Future training program to support those who “maintain a positive attitude amidst the atmosphere of violence they live” and wanted to improve their quality of life (Cámara de Comercio de Medellín, n.d.) Individuals who were between sixteen and twenty-nine, lived in the poverty- stricken comunas and were unemployed could apply to the program, attend a Higher Technical Institute, receive lessons on entrepreneurship and do an internship without any pressure since the municipality provided allowances for food, transportation and equipment. In this way, the municipality aimed at reducing not only criminality but also the gap between the rich and the poor. Through the Urban Development Company (EDU) the municipality also implemented the Urban Integral Project (PUI), a methodology to plan and execute major landscaping and urban interventions as part of the city’s Development Plan. The PUI shapes a variety of projects that range from sport units to libraries, pedestrian bridges, roads and metrocable lines in low-middle income areas (PUI, n.d.). Of all these products, the Library Parks have

become the foremost representatives of Medellín’s new strategy, combining citizen encounter, landscaping intervention, innovation, and education. As examples of modern architecture that stood out from the rest of Medellín’s buildings and which were fully- equipped with technological devices, Library Parks instilled pride in the population. Furthermore, by ensuring free and convenient access to these centers, the municipality kept violence at bay by providing a safe environment and an alternative for those who were at risk of joining criminal bands. “The best of the library is that it helps us to get away from the continuous war we live in the streets. It is a very safe place that gives you the opportunity to learn”, stated a library user (Jaramillo, 2012, p. 77). All in all, Fajardo’s project was so ambitious that by the time he ended his service, Medellín had already inaugurated four library parks and a metrocable line in the comunas 1, 7, 8 and 13 so these projects could provide access to education and transportation to some poverty-stricken areas of the city (ARQA, 2013; Leibler & Brand, 2012; Peña Gallego, 2011) (See Appendix C). Witnessing the impact of socially inclusive and innovative projects on the inhabitants of Medellín, subsequent administrations also promoted social urban planning to foster a sense of belonging in the city and encouraged its inhabitants to take responsibility for the welfare of the environment and others. Within this context, the MHM project became part of a large-scale urban and environmental renovation strategy whose goal was to ‘recover’ both the neglected Santa Elena gorge, one of the main water sources that fed the Medellín river and the city’s downtown (El Tiempo, 2009). Referred to as La Candelaria or Comuna 10, the downtown of Medellín had become one of the city’s main areas of crime and paramilitarism (Riano-Alcala, 2006). Through the construction of a park, the mayoral offices hoped to revitalize the centre’s economic competitivity and to renovate the city’s cultural and educational opportunities (EDU, 2012). The MHM would acquire a permanent and visible place just twenty minutes away from Medellín’s old quarter where the Antioquia Museum, Culture Palace and Botero Plaza are allocated. After the MHM project was created by the municipality’s Victims Unit and approved in 2006, it was formally included within Medellín’s Spatial & Territorial Planning (POT) and the PUI. Both the EDU and Planta Baja Architects were charged with the construction18. The

18 The municipality’s Victims Unit was created to oversee the state’s reparation program for victims after the Justice and Peace Law had been ratified. This unit was replaced in 2012 by the National Unit for Victims created after the promulgation of the Law 1448 of 2011 (Unidad de victímas, n.d.). In addition, the EDU, or Empresa de desarrollo Urbano, is in charge of overseeing and executing the different urban projects in the city of Medellín and is currently part of the municipality's administration office.

project was named Bicentennial Park to commemorate Colombia’s 200 years of independence from Spain. The construction took up a total of 23,779 square meters. 12,552 meters centered on urban intervention (pathways, stairs, etc.), 7,280 meters for landscaping and 3,977 meters for the MHM project (EDU, 2012) (See Appendix D). This project would adopt a similar role to the newly funded library parks. It would function as a leisure complex for outdoor entertainment and cultural activities that “perceives inclusion as a right; an act of social bonding (...) that creates new ways of inhabiting the city” (Peña Gallego, 2011). The Bicentennial project was divided into two stages. In the first stage, the EDU and Planta Baja inaugurated the park, a nearby pedestrian bridge and a water technological screen. This took place on the 24th of July of 2010. Afterwards, the two urban and construction entities focused on completing the construction of the museum. Initially, the inauguration was to take place at the end of 2010 but problems with funding and the neighborhood inhabitants of Barrio Boston delayed its opening until December 2011 (El Tiempo, 2013) For the construction of the Park, the EDU needed to relocate the 600 inhabitants of the Barrio Boston. The entity was supposed to be in charge of negotiating with the community, the prices and the times in which the removals would take place. Initially the neighborhood regarded the construction of the park and its museum favourably. However, discussions regarding the financial compensation that the members of the community would receive led the neighborhood to protest against the project and delay it (El Colombiano, 2009, 2010; El Tiempo, 2009; W-Radio, 2009). Even when the community appealed to the staff in charge of the construction and the media, the EDU decided not to change the Park's inauguration date and carried out the forced eviction of several properties between April and July 2010 (El Tiempo, 2010). Allegedly, the EDU later compensated the evictees financially, but a shadow was cast over the Bicentennial Park project (Villalba Storti, 2012).19 The MHM is located in the south-eastern corner of the Bicentennial Park and all three park entrances lead to the museum, meaning that anybody who enters the park will encounter the building. In architectural terms, the structure was designed to resemble a tunnel with a U-Shaped form. Made out of metal frames and grey concrete slabs, the MHM stands out as a minimalist structure with a heavy and severe appearance. Its gray colour may contrast with the emotionality of the content it handles but, on a closer inspection, the

19 These evictions reveal that in a long-standing conflict like Colombia's, where the resolution of differences by violence has deeply permeated the society and its institutions, it is difficult for museums not to be directly or indirectly involved with the violence they seek to combat.

use of gray can be seen to refer to MHM’s social role as a grey zone. Small windows pop up randomly on each side, which due to their square shape resemble from afar those of the of the working-class comunas. The visitor enters into a dark space which slowly transitions into light, an act that abstractly represents “the darkness of death that swept our streets for various decades to the light of hope of a city which constructs new spaces of life”.20 In accordance with eco- friendly standards, the museum maximizes the use of indirect natural light to reduce energy consumption. The building is composed of three different levels. The ticket, wardrobes and permanent exhibition are all located on the first floor. The ground floor contains other two galleries for permanent exhibitions and workshops, one auditorium and the administrative offices. Finally, the upper floor is exclusively dedicated to the Documentation Centre or Centre of Resources for the Activation of Memory (CRAM). On the outside, the MHM accommodates one memorial, two sculptures and one commemorative plaque. The memorial is located on the right side of the MHM, near the park, and consists of 980 rectangular plaques made and installed in collaboration with the victims from the comunas 3, 6, 8 and 9 (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 21). The sculpture, Tree of Life, is made out of used cutting blades that were collected from the comunas 8, 10 and 13 as part of the municipality’s Semana de Desarme (Week of disarmament); a yearly campaign that promotes voluntary disarmament and raises awareness on nonviolent conflict resolutions (El Colombiano, 2012). The Mahatma Ghandi sculpture and the plaque were gifts made by the Indian Embassy and the Inter-American court of Human Rights respectively. They are both diplomatic gestures which applaud Colombia’s commitment to the reparation of victims and highlight the importance of peacekeeping and Human Rights protection within an international scenario (See Appendix E and F). When the museum was inaugurated at the end of 2011, the building had not been completely finished and the institution did not contain any permanent exhibition or collection. Apart from its goal of addressing and symbolically repairing its victims, there was no clear curatorial strategy. Its first director, historian and artist Carlos Uribe, used the funds

20 Translation from Spanish to English by the author. “(El museo) es una excusa para encontrar en esta ciudad un espacio en donde los ciudadanos nos encontremos para revisar nuestra historia y ser capaces de hacer el tránsito de la oscuridad de la muerte que recorrió nuestras calles por varias décadas, a la luz de la esperanza por lograr vivir frente una ciudad que se construye con nuevos espacios para su vida” (Archdaily Colombia, 2010).

available to install temporary exhibition spaces and organised a series of conferences about the peace negotiation process so that victims could be familiarized with what was being agreed upon between the state and the FARC (Pardo, 2014). He also installed the 980 plaques for the memorial with the help of the victims. By 2012, the financial situation had worsened. Since the MHM was not part of Medellín’s Development Plan, the museum could not access the main economic resources available in the City Council. Instead, funding came from smaller governmental agencies such as the Victims’ Unit and the Governmental Secretary, whose support heavily depended on the political will of whoever was in power. This meant that there was no stable annual income for the museum. The budget was reduced by half and what had begun as a staff of twenty people was reduced to four (El Tiempo, 2013; Semana, 2013). By mid-August 2013, Carlos Uribe resigned. In order to solve the institutional crisis and stabilize the economic situation, the following director, Lucía González, who had previously been responsible for the Victims’ Unit, turned the MHM into a ‘public decentralized entity’. This categorization meant that the museum could begin to complement its budget with funding from other organizations, and did not have to depend on the will of the mayoral service as the income would now be included in the yearly stipend of the City Council (El Colombiano, 2017). The MHM turned to non-governmental organizations, educational institutions and other museum partners such as the International Organization for Migration (OIM), Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), EAFIT University, Antioquia University, Corporación Región and Explora Park Corporation (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b). In 2014, and with the help of Explora Park, OIM, AECID, the Dutch Embassy and various victim and archival organizations, the MHM displayed its first permanent exhibition: Medellín. Memorias de Violencia y Resistencia. One year afterwards, the CRAM documentation center opened its doors to the public, becoming the first public bibliographic collection dedicated to memory and armed conflict in the country (Medellín Joven, 2015). CRAM displays more than 8,000 different books and research articles about armed conflict, peace, reconciliation and initiatives of resistance. Additionally, CRAM became part of the network of Public Libraries of the city supported by Medellín Public Enterprises (EPM), giving this archive the ability to digitize some of its collections and guarantee a wider diffusion of its contents (Red de Bibliotecas, n.d.). Currently, the museum focuses more on immaterial than material heritage. The material collections are mostly made up of family photographs, some of which are seen in the permanent exhibition, or in the document cases which are collected and saved in CRAM

for further research. Within its first report, the MHM (2013) clearly states that it wants to reconstruct its outlook on conflict based on the intangible traces of violence on victims´ life experiences. The main idea is to be able to interact sensorially with the victims, to hear, read and see them but not to materialize suffering. For this reason, the MHM distances itself from the display of any type of weaponry or object which may graphically depict any victimizing fact, choosing instead to portray suffering or violence through artistic and abstract modes of representation. The museum calls its preference for testimony and artistic intervention an ‘expanded aesthetic look’ in which the narrative has full control of the visual elements, molding the objects and defining their messages. Although the building does not reflect the appearance or the warmth of a ‘house’, the use of this concept should not go unremarked. The armed conflict in Medellín has deeply affected the public sphere, preventing inhabitants caught in the violence from narrating their lives. Distrust and terror have relegated testimonies to the private realm because the house “is a setting of trust in which there is no fear or risk of resignifying the traumatic pasts. [Therefore] in contexts of war or post-conflict it is important that collective work develop in setting of trust […] seeking to maintain certain intimacy or familiarity even within public contexts” (Quiceno Toro, 2008, pp. 186–187)21. The institution, keenly aware of this fact, has adopted the term ‘house’ to imply that the visitors are free to testify without the fear of being rejected, hurt, betrayed or judged. The MHM defines itself as an “intimate and public place that opens its doors to learn and comprehend the pain and despair, to give a place to the words and voices that were silenced” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b)22. At the same time, by grounding itself within a park that commemorates Colombia’s independence, MHM is including these silenced, marginalized testimonies within the national narrative.

SMHR’s and MHM’s Museological concepts and models

The Argentinian and Colombian governments classify the SMHR and the MHM, alongside other memorialization initiatives, as sites or places of memory, but in contrast to Nora’s

21 Translated from Spanish by the author. La casa “es un escenario de confianza en el que no existe el miedo o el riesgo de resignificar los pasados traumáticos. En contextos de guerra o post-conflicto es importante que el trabajo colectivo suceda en escenarios de confianza, […] buscando mantener cierta intimidad o familiaridad incluso en lo público” (Quiceno Toro, 2008, pp. 186–187). 22 This house model has been replicated in other regions of Colombia, creating three different projects; The House of Memory in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca (2008), The House of Memory and Culture in Tumaco, Nariño and The Museum House of Memory in El Salado, Bolívar (still to be inaugurated) (See Appendix AA).

(1998) concept of Lieux de Memoire, these entities do not refer to national symbols of identity. Instead, they narrate alternative versions of history, usually related to marginalized communities and difficult pasts (Mercosur IPPDH, 2012; Unidad para las víctimas, 2015). Nevertheless, I will not use the concept of places of memory when I refer to the SMHR and the MHM. Rather, I will define the MHM as a memorial museum and the SMHR as a trauma site because these concepts correspond to the specific role they play within their communities. The MHM is a memorial museum as it provides “in-depth contextual explanations to commemorative acts while also adding a moral framework to the narration of history” (Williams, 2007, p. 8)The SMHR also fulfills the function of a memorial museum, but unlike the MHM, it maintains a real spatial contiguity with the crime itself, which makes it a trauma site. Since it used to be an SDC, the SMHR is a direct witness of repression and a testimony of the past (Violi, 2012). Inevitably, this indexical relation to history directly affects the way its contents are presented and narrated. Due to its ongoing role in the Megacausa ESMA, the SMHR plays a more complex role within the judicial and political system than the straightforwardly museological MHM. Despite their differences, both organizations position themselves as mid-way between a memorial and museum, where, "minimalist and abstract design prevails over that which is grandiose and authoritative; [in which] bodily visitor experiences are sensory and emotional rather than visual and impassive [and] interpretative strategies utilize private, subjective testimony over official historical narrative" (Williams, 2007, p. 3). Instead of establishing a dividing line between academic and experiential knowledge, these museums are pledging themselves to community-based collaboration in which excluded groups have acquired control over their self-representation (Schultz, 2011). This work reconceptualizes the social and political roles of museums by engaging them in activist practices and expanding their repertoire of cultural functions (Carter, 2013). Both institutions exemplify a unique mix between the Human Rights and Communitarian museum models. Represented by international coalitions such as Sites of Conscience, Human Rights Museums frame their actions around the larger act of repairing divided societies and stimulating dialogue and public involvement in social issues. Their aim is to create spaces for people to 'share their overlapping stories', to foster critical thinking and citizenship action against mass abuse by grappling with the ongoing legacies of the past (Purbrick, 2011; Ševčenko, 2011). On an organizational level Human Rights workers and victims’ associations form part of their institutional boards, collaborators and partners. These museums usually also have psychosocial components or departments dedicated to

relatives and survivors, and they preserve material evidence that can aid Truth Commissions or Judicial Trials through documentation center (Carter & Orange, 2012; Williams, 2007). By contrast, Communitarian Museums, which in Latin America result from the conclusions drawn at the Mesa Redonda of Santiago de Chile (1972), establish themselves as socially engaged platforms and meeting points where the diversity and plurality of visions of a country are adequately represented (Araujo & Bruno, 2010). These institutions draw from grassroots organizations in using left-wing approaches to correct the errors and omissions in official versions of the past, "opposing the hegemony of mainstream cultural dynamics and contributing to the development of their communities" (Burón Díaz, 2012, p. 187). Their operational model is either partially or completely run by community members who do not necessarily have experience with museology and, therefore, are less interested in collections, exhibitions or in generating profits, but in social interaction and shared experience. Usually these institutions are focused on supporting local expertise (archeology, arts and crafts) and contributing to the closing of social gaps by giving low- income groups the opportunity to occupy high positions in the cultural sphere (Lafuente & Sommer, 2017). Through the combination of both international and local models of museology, the MHM and the SMHR embody an innovative use of museums in commemorative acts that foster new forms of democratic participation and are actively engaged with the political contexts of their nations (Acuña Vargas, n.d.; Gamboggi, n.d.; Venegas & Vázquez, n.d.). In the following chapters I will dive into the particularities of each case, showing how they exemplify the aforementioned concepts and museological models.

CHAPTER I: Duty of Memory gives life to a Space

One by one, silhouettes started to appear. Made out of paper or carton, fixed onto trees, sketched onto the structures of buildings, they took hold of the urban landscape of Buenos Aires. What had started as the artistic initiative of a few became a collective attempt to portray the absences produced by seven years of silence. Individuals gathered spontaneously in the main square, Plaza de Mayo, and lent their bodies to sketch silhouettes that would return a presence within the public sphere to their sons, daughters, parents and brothers. These shapes reinserted the absent bodies into daily urban life and refused to conceal or obscure the pain that had, until then, remained behind closed doors (See Appendix G). By publicly depicting the absence, these images made evident the social impact of the dictatorship. Grouped together, the figures demanded attention. They were there not only to commemorate, but to hold society accountable for their loss. As stated later by a journalist, the silhouettes "seemed to point the finger at those who were guilty of their absence, and silently demanded justice” (Longoni, 2008, p. 54).23 From their first appearance on September 21st 1983, the Siluetazos were there to counteract the absence and, at the same time, to interrogate society about their existence. Until bystanders and culprits were able to gaze back at the desaparecidos, to confront them and to respond to their questions, the silhouettes would remain. Over the years, these silhouettes became embodiments, not only of presence in absence, but of the collective struggle for memory, justice, and truth within post-dictatorship Argentina. The silhouettes’ significance continues as a result of society’s failures to acknowledge its wrongdoings. Victim and solidarity organizations have assumed the role of the spokespersons of the disappeared, seeking accountability for the crimes committed against them. As soon as the court's doors closed and the presidential pardons were established, memory emerged as a tool to counter the state's negligence. The government's appeal to reconciliation through the use of silence and forgetting became the new opponents of these movements. For them, silence and forgetting were to be equated with

23 Translated from Spanish by the author. “Un periodista escribió que las siluetas “parecían señalar desde las paredes a los culpables de su ausencia y reclamar silenciosamente justicia” (Longoni, 2008, p. 54).

repression and lack of retributive justice (Benner, 2017). The only way to ensure that prosecutions would one day be possible was to carry public activities that maintained the figures of the disappeared, as well as the relatives’ demands, in the public eye. From the 1990s onwards, memory became both an extension of the struggle for the right to truth and justice, and a label that referred to any demonstration openly condemning state terrorism. As the artist and poet Remo Bianchedi asserted, "memory produces justice, memory is a mechanism of truth. It does not communicate a judgment but enables judgment" (Brodsky, 2005, p. 109).24 Aware of the powerful artistic effects of initiatives like the Siluetazo in the public sphere, Human Rights groups began to include performative dimensions into their marches and events in order to attract collective attention. Some demonstrations as early as 1985 had already included artistic performances such as the use of masks or hand painting, but the practice was made official in 1996. With the help of newly formed victims’ organizations such as Ex-Detainee-Disappeared Association (AEDD), H.I.J.O.S, Fundación memoria histórica y social Argentina, Abuelas, Madres, CELS and SERPAJ and other political parties created the Commission for Memory, Truth, and Justice (Equipo Nizkor, n.d.).25 This commission summoned students, workers, intellectuals, and artists to arrange a monthly cultural program mobilizing the community in favor of their cause for the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the coup. The events took place in main urban centers of Argentina, as well as in some of the provinces. They included music concerts, theatre presentations, and art shows. It was in this context that escrache made its first appearance as part of a new strategy of H.I.J.O.S youth collectives, devised to cast opprobrium upon the military and policemen who were freed thanks to presidential pardons (Longoni, 2008, p. 206).26 The word escrache is used to mean the practice by which youth collectives used

24 Translated from Spanish by the author. “La memoria produce justicia, la memoria es un mecanismo de verdad. No comunica un juicio, sino que permite tener juicio” (Brodsky, 2005, p. 109). 25 H.I.J.O.S. (Sons for Identity and Justice against Oblivion and Silence) was one of the last additions to the family of victims produced by the dictatorial regime. Along with Brothers (Hermanos de Desaparecid@s por la Verdad y la Justicia, 2002), the two associations embodied a generational change within the Human Rights Movement and inherited the struggle for Justice and Truth from the original victims’ organizations. The goal of H.I.J.O.S. is to act as agents that expose the need for social justice through creative methodologies such as escraches, graffiti, marches and theatre (Benegas, 2011; Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2014a; Herman@s de Desaparecidos por la Verdad y la Justicia, n.d.). 26 The art collectives who allied with H.I.J.O.S were GAC (Street Art) and Grupo Etcétera. Both of them conceive of art as a tool of resistance and political expression against hegemonic structures and carry out most of their initiatives in public space without notification. In the beginning of the 1990s, the two youth groups were mainly

graffiti, paint bombs, flyers, posters, music and chants to take over neighborhoods where culprits lived, and to publicly shame them by signaling the crimes the individuals had committed (Benegas, 2011). From then on, escrache would become a common practice to testify to the presence of injustice, create awareness of the legacies of dictatorship and generate social condemnation. Their recurring chant was: “If there is no justice, then there is escrache” (Brodsky, 2005, p. 175). The most significant events of the 20th anniversary, however, were the three public marches planned by the H.I.J.O.S and the Mothers de la Plaza that took place in the Plaza de Mayo and in front of the ESMA. Two hundred social movements, political parties and millions of citizens gathered together in what would become the massively-attended annual March demonstrations (Página/12, March 25, 2015). As a product of the marches and the artistic activities carried out by the Commission, victims’ organizations came to be equated with the broader struggle for Human Rights in Argentina. Their figures and testimonies became leading documentary sources turned to by artists and intellectuals researching the dictatorial past (Lorenz, Marchesi, Stern, & Winn, 2016). Despite this, it was not until the second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s that Human Rights organizations considered materializing the memory of the military dictatorship through the use of permanent markers. Until that point memory was “something [...] transmitted through their very presence on the public scene, be it through talks in schools, conferences or in the participation and other public activities”(Van Drunen, 2010, p. 118). There were three contextual reasons for the transition from 'memory acts' to 'memorialization'. Firstly, the recognition by Human Rights organizations of the fact that artistic activities in the public sphere were momentary expressions that faded with time, even when popular. During the dictatorship, politically engaged artists created their work within underground spaces, bars, and nightclubs in the margins of cultural activity. As a result of this marginality, many of their works were not wholly included within the mainstream cultural sphere even after the transition. Cultural centers, such as San Martín and La Recoleta in Buenos Aires, provided semi-permanent spaces for Human Rights movements and artists to explore the impact of repression within their programme, but were not exclusively dedicated to this topic (Centro Cultural la Recoleta, n.d.). Additionally, many official museological institutions maintained their distance from topics related to

composed of visual artists. Over the years the GAC and Etcétera have included actors, musicians, graphic designers and photographers (Página/12, 2005).

Argentina's contemporary history, and focused instead on the colonial and republican pasts of the nation.27 Therefore, if those who had experienced the dictatorship wanted their memories to remain in the forefront of public consciousness, their initiatives had to assume a more durable form.28 Secondly, many of the survivors of the detention centers were growing old and were confronted with the question of who would remember the disappeared once they were dead. Collective initiatives began to center on communicating the experiences of survivors to younger generations, so that they would become the future bearers of the fight against impunity. As the social scientist Emilio Crenzel pointed out, “Various forms of initiatives were promoted with the aim of building bridges for intergenerational transmission [...] starting in 1994 and prompted by Human Right organizations and people close to the disappeared, “memory commissions” were formed in universities, schools and trade unions, and neighborhoods to reconstruct the names and public and private life stories of the disappeared”(Allier, E., & Crenzel, 2015, p. 26). The establishment of memory commissions in educational spaces would lead to the creation of the first memory archives in the country such as Biographical Family Archive (1998), Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) (1999) and Memoria Abierta (2001). Set up by Human Rights collectives, Memoria Abierta and the CPM collected registries of disappearance cases and Human Rights initiatives under the military dictatorship, as well as oral testimonies of former prisoners, militants, activists and relatives (Comisión provincial por la memoria, n.d.-b; Memoria Abierta, 2016). With this practice, they guaranteed long-lasting public access to information about Argentina’s recent political history. The Biographical Family Archive, by contrast, was made up of recorded messages to be given to grandchildren who, in their search for family members, would not find any of their relatives alive but could at least have information about their family's past through their grandmother's voice (Abuelas de plaza de mayo, n.d.).

27 The perfect embodiment of this type of approach, continuing into the present, is the National Historical Museum (Museo Histórico Nacional, n.d.) 28 The first exhibitions from state museums that dealt with the dictatorial regime were made for the celebration of the Bicentennial of Independence in Argentina. One example is the permanent exhibition on the history of Argentina the Bicentennial Museum inaugurated in 2011, which functions as an annex of the Casa Rosada, or presidential house. The Museum of Fine Arts also included artworks that treat the topic in their three-parts temporary exhibition named: Bicentenario: Imágenes paralelas. The Museum of Memory of Rosario, created by the Municipal Council of the City in 1998, also received a permanent headquarter on 2010 (Bellas Artes, n.d.; Museo de la Memoria, n.d.; Presidencia de la Nación, n.d.).

The first memory landmarks to appear were commemorative plaques, street tiles or trees placed by Human Rights movements in alliance with provincial and municipal governments (Allier, E., & Crenzel, 2015). This manner of commemoration expanded quickly in the 2000s with the help of a neighborhood organization called Barrios por la memoria y la justicia (Neighborhoods for Memory and Justice) which involved the community in the placing of territorial markers in sites where former detainees had lived, worked, studied or been actively militant (Comisión provincial por la memoria, n.d.-c; Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2015a). However, these works were still small-scale projects. The first large-scale project to gain public visibility was the Remembrance Park. At the end of 1997, the Buena Memoria organization, backed by the support of contemporary artist Marcelo Brodsky, presented a petition to construct a memory park and monument along the Plata river (Culture 21, n.d.; Van Drunen, 2010). The governmental office approved their request, and created a Commision Pro-Monument to make the project viable. This commission formulated the Law 46 through which the park became a governmental initiative. The remembrance park would consist of a series of sculpture installations surrounding a memorial in which the names of all the disappeared of the 1970s and 80s would be inscribed (Hite, 2013) However, the project would not be completed until 2007. Victims’ organizations such as Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, AEDD and H.I.J.O.S vehemently opposed the Remembrance park and the commemorative tiles set up in neighborhoods, feeling they communicated the idea that the disappeared were dead, and viewing their attempt to mourn and bring closure to the subject as ‘freezing memory’ and foreclosing the possibility of future justice (Van Drunen, 2010). Repeating what she had declared in 1985, the director of Madres, Hebe de Bonafini declared, “Our children are not dead, they live in the fight, dreams and commitment of all those who fight for the justice and liberty of their nation [...] we reject plaques and monuments because that means to bury the dead. The only homage possible is to raise their fight flags and continue their journey” (Lefranc & Pons, 2005, p. 138).29 Additionally, these groups were already suspicious of the inclusion of the state in memorialization initiatives following Menem’s attempt to destroy the ESMA. For these group devising of a memory park project only confirmed the government’s plans to wash

29 Translated from Spanish by the author. “(...) Nuestros hijos no están muertos, ellos viven en la lucha, los sueños y el compromiso revolucionario de otros jóvenes (...) rechazamos las placas y los monumentos porque eso significa enterrar a los muertos. El único homenaje posible es levantar sus banderas de lucha y continuar su camino” (Lefranc & Pons, 2005, p. 138).

their hands of responsibility and avoid responding to their demands for prosecution by annulling the presidencial pardons and decrees (Página/12, n.d.). Nevertheless, none of the opposing Human Rights groups were able to stop the growing institutionalization of memory in the city of Buenos Aires, as well as in other regions. Once Kirchner came to power in 2003, state policy openly engaged with the dictatorial past and strove to establish a renewed relationship with the Human Rights associations. Kirchner ratified the human right groups claim of ‘30,000 disappeared’ in the 2006 edition of the Nunca Más, converted the preservation of archival materials of the dictatorship into a state policy and gave complete autonomy to the social movements so they could decide what to do with former SDC’s. The transformation of the ESMA into a Space of Memory was one of the main projects undertaken by the government in converting the politics of remembrance into state policy (Allier, E., & Crenzel, 2015). In the following section, I will explore how the 'recovery' process of the ESMA revealed the difficulties of producing an account of the dictatorial past, given the plurality of viewpoints involved, and how these fault lines have determined the fragmentary and eclectic character of the SMHR.

What should be done with the ESMA?

A critical point of debate in the SMHR project was related to the functions the place should assume once it was opened to the public. At the end of 2004, Guido Indij and Marcelo Brodsky published a call for proposals addressed to seven Human Rights organizations, as well as to intellectuals, artists, private citizens, the City Council and the national executive branch, to define the strategies the SMHR should adopt. Andermann (2012) identified three approaches within the proposals that were collected in the book Memorias en construcción (2005). Firstly, the testimonial approach, defended by the AEDD and the essayist Alejandro Kaufman, which advocated for the preservation of the entire ESMA in an unaltered state. Proponents of this view disagreed with the idea of re-allocating Human Rights organizations within the School, because it would displace the significance of the space as a center of disappearance and torture. "The museum should not argue or propel a debate. It should limit itself to showing the nature of the dispositive, the mechanics of crime [...] creating a debate

about the violence would be to trivialize and, in a certain way, deny the horror lived in the ESMA" (Brodsky, 2005, p. 79).30 The second strategy, or performative approach took a 365-degree turn. Defended by Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, H.I.J.O.S, and MEDH, this strategy considered future-oriented artistic and political activities as the cornerstone of the museum. The collectives agreed that the buildings which had been used to house the SDC facilities should be kept in their original form so they could also serve as legal proof of the crime. Nonetheless, the rest of the SMHR should be centered on training future generations in Human Rights values and engaging them in artistic forms of political activism. This would be the best way to transform the trauma site into a platform of organized resistance for the present. "If we maintain a torture chamber, we forget that they [the disappeared] gave their lives for a better country. And that is what should be defended", concluded Hebe de Bonafini, leader of the Madres (Brodsky, 2005, p. 219)31 The museal option, vindicated by more state-oriented Human Right groups such as Abuelas, Madres L.F, Familiares, SERPAJ, CELS and Buena Memoria, considered the need to contextualize and arrange the site's material evidence so it could serve educational values. The main detention center of the ESMA, the Casino de Oficiales, should inform the visitors about how the SDC used to function, through photographs, family members and survivors’ testimonies. Cuatro Columnas, the entrance building to the terrain, should house instead a permanent exhibit that includes a historical explanation of state Terrorism. The rest of the facilities could accommodate the different Human Rights institutions, art spaces, and conference rooms. These associations also approved the allocation of a documentation center such as the National Memory Archive, and the elaboration of pedagogical material for primary, elementary and secondary schools. The goal was to turn the SMHR into an educational place that would deal both with the memory of the dictatorial regime and with the history of Human Rights violations in Argentina, as well as devising creative methodologies that would contribute to peace and conflict studies on a regional scale. Over the years, the material and symbolic landscape of the SMHR has acquired a multiplicity of meanings due to the coexistence of official institutions and Human Rights

30 Translated from Spanish by the author: “No es un museo que necesite polemizar ni sostener un debate. Sólo debe mostrar y demostrar la naturaleza del dispositivo, de la mecánica del crimen [...] Crear un debate sobre la violencia sería relativizarlo y en cierta manera negar el horror que se vivió en el ESMA.” (Brodsky, 2005, p.79). 31 Translated from Spanish by the author: “Si ponemos una cámara de tortura solamente, olvidamos que ellos dieron su vida por un país mejors. Y eso es lo que tendría que ser reivindicado” (Brodsky, 2005, p. 219)

association. On the one hand, governmental and regional institutions (Memory archive, HR Secretary, Mercosur and Public.TV) have transformed the former centers for military training and operations, or Escuelas de guerra (Schools of War), into spaces that give courses on historical memory and promote a series of cultural activities that communicate Human Rights values. Some victims’ associations, such as H.I.J.O.S, Familiares/Memoria Abierta and Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, have opted instead to invert the uses of the ESMA and train visitors in different forms of political and social militancy. They constantly promote the figures of the disappeared, ex-prisoners and relatives as exemplary models to teach future generations about the importance of fighting for social justice and equality. Examples include the White Scarf Salon, the 30,000 comrades present exhibition or the H.I.J.O.S Casa de la Militancia (House of Militancy). The Abuelas as well as the EAAF have decided to use their spaces to instruct the public about their work, strategies, and accomplishments helping individuals retrace their ancestry and personal right to identity. The last group is composed of the Patrick Rice Ecumenical Center and the Madres L.F. Their main function is to create opportunities for multi-religious or youth cooperation and memory transmission. In the final meetings, all of the groups agreed that the seven buildings that made part of the SDC should not become organizational headquarters in order to preserve the evidence. Instead, they were carefully singled out, information signs were displayed at the entrance of each of the buildings and until the inauguration of the Museum Site of Memory in 2015, visitors could only go inside them in the presence of a tour guide (Arnold-De Simine, 2015; Otálvaro-Hormillosa, 2013). Once each organization had been allocated a space within SMHR, they were given complete power over which events they would promote, so long as they had a pedagogical purpose, dealt with Human Rights and respected the image of the disappeared. Both before 2014 under the administration of the IEM, and, currently, with the Public Entity the SMHR has maintained its autarkic status, valuing inclusivity and group consensus over a centralized form of organization. In alliance with the organizations which had argued for the performative and museal function, the City council and the Secretary of Human Rights have prioritized the use of the space as an educational and cultural centre. The five buildings supervised by the Public Entity maintain the two institutional functions outlined by the Human Rights associations when the site was inaugurated. That is, the SMHR is a place dedicated to a) paying homage to the victims and b) opposing the violations committed by state terrorism (Argentina para mirar, 2014). The ratification of the SMHR as a site of memory as well as the allocation of the Museum and National Memory Archive, has created an additional task which had not been originally considered by the

associations. The SMHR is now in charge of assisting the prosecutions of past Human Rights violations by preserving, documenting and communicating the traces of the dictatorial crimes committed in the ESMA. This means that the SMHR forms part of the legal reparation process for the victims of state terrorism. I will explore how these three functions, which I respectively label as Homage, Resistance, and Reparation, are displayed within the SMHR, by analyzing two of the buildings managed by the Public Entity: the Museum Site of Memory ESMA (Casino) and the Cuatro Columnas. These three functions will connect the museological projects showcased in the two buildings with the community outreach and public programmes presented by the Public Entity. I have included the blueprint of the Cuatro Columnas to orient readers within the space but, unlike the museum in Medellín, I have not signaled which parts of the display perform each function. Instead, I use the map so that readers can locate themselves within a building that simultaneously displays five exhibits, one mural and one workshop. In order to give an overall presentation of the SMHR, Homage is the only function that includes the activities presented by the individual Human Rights Organizations. Resistance and Reparation, on the other hand, are limited to the Cuatro Columnas building and the Museum respectively.

Homage

Within the SMHR, it is possible to see that Human Right groups have disassociated any form of commemoration from bereavement. As Hebe de Bonafini states, the act of mourning would imply that the death of the disappeared, confining their figures to the past and foreclosing a subject that has not been dealt with on a social scale. Grieving would also enable the state and the armed forces to evade the consequences of their actions, fulfilling the perpetrators' ultimate goal: to erase any traces of crime along with the bodies and lives of the victims (Arnold-De Simine, 2015). Commemoration therefore disavows any attempt to mourn and centers on returning an identity to the disappeared, inserting their individual experiences in the collective sphere and vindicating their beliefs and struggles. "The places which functioned as SDC's […] have to make visible the disappeared-detainees […] therefore; these sites must reconstruct and narrate their life histories" (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2015b)32 This may be the main reason why, unlike at MHM, there is no spot in the

32 Translated from Spanish by the author: “Los lugares que funcionaron como Centros de detención clandestina […] tienen que poder visibilizar a los detenidos-desaparecidos […] entonces, es casi un deber de

SMHR inscribing the names of the disappeared, not even in the crime spot N.7, or sports camp, which navy officers allegedly used as a common grave (See Appendix B). The SMHR wants to avoid alluding to death or encouraging visitors to interact with the place as a symbolic grave, instead maintaining the bodies and the stories in an interlude between life and death and transforming the SDC into a vibrant cultural centre in which interactions between human rights organizations, students, teachers, visitors and tourists, snatch the ESMA away from the shadow of death. In visual terms, the disappeared are made present by the constant use of photographs, siluetazos, graffiti and other artistic interventions throughout the SMHR terrain. Displayed alongside monuments that commemorate the rounds of the mothers in the Plaza, pasted onto the walls, or displayed at entrances, photographs constitute the primary mode of personification. They are a proof of the existence of the disappeared that simultaneously preserves the individuality of their lives and represents them as a collective. If we look closely at them, we can identify two types of photographs, those taken from family albums and those taken from identity cards left behind after their arrest. Family photos depict lively and serene faces that publicly demonstrate the existence of a domestic network which was broken apart by the Dictatorship. By contrast, bureaucratic photographs give an impersonal account of the disappeared and, having been taken by the very institutions that were later involved in their disappearance, make it impossible for the state to deny their existence. In this case, the photograph "asserts itself as evidence, as an exposure not of the one captured but of the regime that captured him/her" (Andermann, 2012, p. 80). The images are usually displayed in a large-scale format and positioned at eye level or higher, "their presences rise- compelling and poignant- to a height in which many can feel observed and questioned" (Crenzel, 2010, p. 47)(See Appendix H).33 Graffiti, murals or other types of artistic interventions, including the siluetazo, cannot be taken as legal evidence of the disappeared but have an emotional appeal that transforms depictions into ghostly presences. Through the appropriation of the faces in the hands of artists, visitors or even survivors and relatives, the artworks allegorically restore the agency of the disappeared by exhibiting the social networks these individuals were part of. Two artistic interventions have demonstrated how art strives to give life to the motionless

estos lugares el reconstruir y contar las historias de vida de personas que fueron asesinadas o desaparecidas” (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2015b). 33 Translated from Spanish by the author: “Sus presencias se alzan -contundentes y conmovedoras- a una altura desde la que muchos más pueden sentirse interpelados y “mirados” (Crenzel, 2010, p. 47).

images of the detainees at the SMHR. Presented in the Infirmary building in 2014, Apparitions was a travelling exhibition made by the North-American visual artist Brian Carlson. He took five-hundred white and black photographs and turned them into portraits that retained their individuality thanks to the use of a color palette for each case. By giving a distinct background to each of the paintings, Carlson suggested the detainees' unique personalities and political ideals. “65% of the ones who were assassinated were under twenty-five years old. The disappeared were predominantly young, full of life, intense, utopic and the way I could engage with this [fact], was through the use of bright, vivid colors” (Los Andes, 2016).34 The second example is an art installation of large format pictures placed around different buildings of the SMHR. The initiative was carried out by the GAC who named the temporary display Present, implying that the pictures were also a gift for the SMHR. GAC was aware that the materials employed would not ensure the durability of the images, however, the primary objective was to create a landmark for the relatives of the detainee who wished to pay tribute to them. The printed photographs were divided into a series of squares and, with the help of families and friends, pasted separately onto the walls until they formed a full image of their loved one. After each of the pictures had been completed, either the family members or the artists spoke briefly about the detainee's life story and ended the gathering by stating their name out loud so that the crowd who had gathered around the image could respond by applauding and hailing "Present! Now and always!". Stencils and murals appropriate photographs or other forms of artistic representation of the disappeared (shadows, faceless figures, etc.) as part of a bigger composition that relates to the theme of memory and human rights. In this case, the pictures of detainees become a tool of political denunciation that, when sketched by the hands of the youth, involves them in a historic struggle for justice. In the annual gathering Urban Art and Memory, the SMHR stimulates young people to assist workshops and conferences by muralists and graffiti artists that familiarize them with the visual history of the dictatorship. Afterwards, individuals and groups are encouraged to create artworks and display them around the entrance of the property. Other types of countercultural expressions, such as hip-hop, are also presented at the gatherings that take place inside or outside the School’s terrain, incorporating alternative forms of expression in the nearby

34 Translated from Spanish by the author. “El 65% de los asesinados eran menores de 25 años. Los desaparecidos eran en su mayoría jóvenes, llenos de vida, palpitantes, idealistas y la forma de hablar de esto, para mí, exigía colores brillantes.” (Los Andes, 2016).

barrios that raise their voices against state violence and other forms of social injustice (See Appendix I).35 The quest to honor the disappeared has also turned to narrative forms that provide an insight into the political aspirations of the disappeared, give a glimpse of the social environment that preceded the coup and mark the places where the disappeared used to live, work and protest. The first of these initiatives appeared in 2012 with the installation of fourteen glass panels that transcribed the letter against the junta written by the journalist Rodolfo Walsh. The author of the work, which was set up near the Casino, was the renowned visual artist León Ferrari. Through a ceremony that gathered Walsh's family, relatives, and coworkers, the SMHR underlined the importance of the letter in openly condemning the abductions and economic policies carried out by the military in the height of the repression. The transcription can be seen as a tribute to Walsh, whose body was last seen in the surroundings of the Casino. Materially implying the transparency of Walsh's words, the glass panels may be considered a performative act through which the journalist's words are fixed on the bodies of Argentinians (Bell, 2014, p. 40) Part of a joint effort between the Public Entity, the Haroldo Conti Cultural Centre, and National Memory Archive, Memorias de Vida y Militancia (Memories of Life and Militancy) is another project that gives the stories of the disappeared a durable form. Large cards featuring photographs, letters, and even artworks created by the detainees, provide a personal and social background of their lives while escaping the traditional zoom-in framing of the individual's face. Mainly colorful, like Carlson's portraits, each postcard was created with the assistance of a close relative who donated the photographs and other personal objects of the disappeared to the National Archive (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2015b). It can be said that the initiative inserts these individual lives into the broader social history of the nation by highlighting the shared interests, life stories and political alliances of the thirty-four disappeared. Although the SMHR asserts that the postcards portray the political project that the detainees fought for, aside from naming the guerrilla organizations or left-wing parties they belonged to, there is little contextual information (or explanation) about the political situation of the country in the 60s and 70s. Even though there are no Baldosas x la Memoria (Tiles for Memory) installed in the SMHR's terrain, the Public Entity

35 Arte urbano y Memoria- “Justicia por Alain Tapa”. Available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- m9LUmHOKao (Espaciomemoria, 2015)

periodically organizes workshops with the association Neighborhoods for Memory and Justice to create commemorative tiles. The SMHR calls on the local organizations of each neighborhood adjoining the School and use the Cuatro Columnas as a creative studio to make the distinctive blue plaques later installed in one of the barrios that form Comuna 13 (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2013a). Over the years, these tiles have employed a specific form of language in order to defend the political affiliations of the disappeared. The ceramics address the detainees as “popular militants” instead of victims, emphasizing their work and beliefs beyond the victimization fact. The inscriptions also list the names of the perpetrators, when they are known, or attribute the responsibility to state Terrorism if the case remains to be clarified. Most importantly, the descriptions include an explanation as to why the tile has been placed in a specific area or building by stating “[name] lived, studied/worked or disappeared here.” The ceramics are decorated with colored glass made in order to attract the passerby's attention. Breaking with the aesthetic and architectural patterns of the city, the tiles “leave a place for the presence of absence in the public sphere [...and] question the passerby's position concerning the past and the present, disturbing some and inciting reflection on others; however, when the tiles are stepped on, the disappeared appear once more” (Samanes & Quiroga, 2015, p. 121).36 Until now I have shown how relatives and Human Rights associations form a part of the initiatives carried out to honor the disappeared. However, in the past few years, their lives have also become a subject of commemoration. After the inauguration of the Patrick Rice Ecunemical Center (2010) and the White Scarves Salon (2014), the SMHR has underlined the figures of Madres and Abuelas of the Plaza, Familiares, and Theologists of Liberation in continuing the fight for the more equitable society their loved ones perished for and “winning over the territories of death” planned by the dictatorship. The Ecumenical Center has turned ESMA's Catholic church into a multi religious prayer space as a token of appreciation for Patrick Rice, the Irish Catholic, and later on, Protestant priest, who decided to search for the whereabouts of the disappeared during the dictatorship. The White Scarves Salon, on the other hand, explores the meaning behind the objects used by Abuelas, Madres and Familiares to represent the absence of their loved ones as well as their commitment to the Human Rights movement (Espaciomemoria, 2014).

36 Translated from Spanish by the author. “Dejan un lugar para la presencia de la ausencia en el ámbito público de lo cotidiano [...] [que] interpela al transeúnte sobre su propio lugar en el pasado y en el presente, incomodando a algunos y poniendo a reflexionar a otros; pero cuando se pisan estas baldosas los desaparecidos se nos aparecen” (Samanes & Quiroga, 2015, p. 121).

Breathing life into a detention center has also involved unorthodox methods of commemoration such as including the SMHR in the annual Museum Night (2014-), holding concerts, potato harvesting, communal meals such as asados (barbecues) or Cooking and Politics sessions. The asados in particular have become a matter of controversy, since the term was used to refer to the cremation of corpses in the SDC and the barbecue’s main utensil, the parrilla, referred to the metal rack on which inmates were tortured by the electric shocks of a cattle prod (Sosa, 2016). For many groups, especially for the AEDD, the reoccupation process of the ESMA has gotten out of control (La Nación, 2013)However, this attempt to break with the traditional repertoires of commemoration generate another relation to the loss based on the idea of conviviality. By holding academic, political and culinary gatherings, the SMHR tries to emerge as an "affective architecture" in which new affiliations are kindled in the face of pain, giving life to other forms of sociability.

Resistance

Connecting the homage function with resistance, a wide range of exhibitions and initiatives attempt to breed new forms of civic engagement based on the political ideals of the disappeared. The goal of this function is to communicate the values the 70s generation fought for, so they can continue to live in the minds and actions of future generations. To fulfill this purpose, the SMHR encourages the visitor to engage with the Dictatorial past and establish continuities between it and the present-day social and economic inequalities of Argentina. This re-actualization of history enables the SMHR to validate the struggle for truth and justice of Human Rights movement and stimulates the public, particularly young people, to take the matter of justice into their own hands and contribute to the creation of a different political order. This function supposes that if democratic forms of citizenship are strengthened, individuals and collectives will assume a moral obligation towards the past. Based on the idea of militating against impunity, the SMHR brings people together to reflect on pressing issues that are either overlooked, ignored or kept hidden in Argentinian society, and whose exposure can lead to effective changes within the prevailing power structures. A key element of this function is to connect the past and the work of the Human Rights organizations with the day-to-day life activities and interests of the target audience, so the initiatives can give life to new forms of social activism. The Cuatro Columnas is a good point of departure to understand how this function unfolds on a museographical level. From the outside, the building maintains the severe

appearance characteristic of classical architecture. It conveys order, hierarchy, structure, and civility. However, once visitors enter the space, the coexistence of diverse artworks and exhibits, as well as their chaotic arrangement, instantly contradicts the values the architecture is intended to portray. Originally designed to house the Director's headquarters, classrooms, amphitheaters and a large courtyard to practice military formations, the Public Entity now uses the space as a meeting point in which different Human Rights organizations and art collectives can install their exhibits or carry out their workshops (Golder, C., personal communication, December 15, 2017). There is no clear-cut exhibition strategy or intention of providing a single narrative for the public to follow. Instead, the purpose seems to be that of undermining the power and authority the building used to have (See Appendix J). As of December 10, 2017, the Cuatro Columnas has presented five different exhibitions, a mural produced by the annual gathering of Urban Art, and a photographic display elaborated in one of the workshops for the Youth and Memory educational program (See Appendix K). Not all of the exhibitions are complete. In fact, Matria (red) Resistencias (white) and Human Rights (black) have been partially dismantled and now consist of fewer objects than were initially displayed. Likewise, some panels that used to belong to previous permanent exhibitions (green) remain enclosed in a corner. One semi-permanent display, Preserve to Transmit Memory (yellow), illustrates the spaces of the Casino that were used as an SDC and showcases some of the objects that were found in the building by the EAAF after its eviction in 2004. There are also some artworks or architectural models (blue) that seem not to be part of any previous or present display, but which are placed alongside other exhibits. Since the premises of the Ex-ESMA are considered a site that can provide evidence for the Megacausa, no structural changes regarding the architectural forms or materials can be pursued. Nevertheless, the Public Entity has found in artistic forms of representation the primary vehicle to intervene in the Cuatro Columnas. The building "seeks to defeat not only the legitimacy of what a leader, regime, or group did but also, implicitly, the society they had planned" (Williams, 2007, p. 162). A striking proof of this sabotage is the red and grey 'marble' tiles that 'decorate' the left side of the building. They seem to fit perfectly with the overall architectural grandeur, but their condemnatory tone is laid bare as soon as the public observes them upclose. The swirls and veins of the limestone transform into remnants of clothing and shoes. At first sight, the objects were camouflaged because the colored dirt covered their traces. However, unable to eliminate the scraps, these items remain as silent

reminders of the corpses that have not been found but which continue to be part of the Argentinian landscape, overturning and corroding the western values the nation outspokenly promotes (See Appendix L). The partially dismantled exhibits, Matria (red) and Resistencias (white), follow suit. Both displays bring to the forefront current issues that expose the fault lines and contradictions of Argentinian society. Displayed between October and December of 2017, they are the result of two artist collectives, of 22 and 100 artists respectively, that firmly oppose the idea of a commercial and individualistic approach to their work. The two exhibits support young people who are socially engaged and regard art as a practice of cultural dissent. The use of low-cost materials and typographic fonts, reminiscent of protest posters and manifestos, reinforce the collectives' need to separate themselves from the arts as luxury goods. Moreover, both cooperatives regard artistic plurality as the cornerstone of their work, encouraging a wide range of practices: from video art, theatre and performance to painting, photography, sculpture, and drawings. The use of certain words and concepts also reveals the collectives' outlook on art as a tool with which to express rebellion. For example, Malón, the name of the organization which arranged the Matria exhibit, refers to a collective offensive tactic used by the Mapuche communities against the Spanish (Foerster & Vezub, 2011). In this case the collective characterizes itself as a malón because it acts as a band to confront the mainstream "terrains of contemporary art" and redeem the voices of those who have been marginalized and oppressed by their society (Malón de Octubre, n.d.). The the exhibit emphasizes gendered analysis of art. The word Patria, or Fatherland, was used by the military to defend Catholic values, hierarchy, individuality and social order, the curators opted instead for Matria, a word which, for them, emphasizes irreverence, group action, and horizontality. As its name implies, Resistencias gathered artworks whose main idea was to “exert a force of opposition” against state violence in Argentina. Most of the artworks dealt either with marginalized communities (working-class youth, indigenous communities, etc.) or with the continued presence of dictatorial forms of violence expressed by recent assassination or abduction cases. In this respect, the disappearance of the activist Santiago Maldonado on the 1st of August 2017 acquired a particular significance and became a recurrent theme

within the display.37 He was invoked continuously through the work of various artists who painted or drew portraits of him, depicted his features (eyes) or randomly pasted stickers of his face onto the walls, demanding his return. The Malón collective also supported this approach, selecting one video installation that carried out a virtual geographic search for Santiago Maldonado, and a work of art in honor of Carlos Fuentealba, a syndicalist who was assassinated by the Police during a teachers’ protest in the province of Neuquén in 2009. Both exhibitions stressed the need to oppose the normalization of different forms of social injustice by questioning post-dictatorship claims of equality, solidarity and even guarantees of non-repetition with the famous Nunca más slogan. Instead of highlighting the successes of the Human Rights struggle in ensuring accountability for historical crimes, the collectives focused on the unresolved debt to the past as a way of sowing doubt and promote reflexivity. The artworks and the materials used purposely clash with the elegant appearance of the architecture, standing out and defying assimilation. Within the educational sector, programs such as Youth and Memory and Constructing Memories are two additional instances in which the function of resistance is present. Originated by the CPM in 2002, the SMHR became co-organizer of the Youth and Memory program in 2011 and expanded the it to a wider network of public schools in the province of Buenos Aires (Raggio, 2006). The joint initiative involves high-school students in a year-long program in which they are in charge of researching the traces of the past in their neighborhoods as well as interacting with the local community to produce an artistic project. The goal of this program is to stimulate "the formation of a historical conscience and citizenship in the new generation since it regards them as agents capable of associating and producing historical accounts as well as transforming themselves and influencing their environment" (Raggio, 2006, p. 2). Defined by the CPM and the SMHR, the projects can select one of the following themes: 1) the narration of a life-story of a disappeared person from either the dictatorship or post-dictatorship period, 2) the reconstruction of local episodes of repression and resistance, 3)the exploration of collective attitudes that treat the past as 'if nothing had happened', 4) the narration of daily life stories during the dictatorship, 5) research into the economic and social transformations produced by the dictatorship in the

37 Santiago Maldonado (1989-2017) was an anarchist who defended the rights of access to the land of the Mapuche community, was last seen protesting in the province of Chubut (South) before the gendarmerie opened fire to stop the blockade. His body was finally found on October 20, seventy-eight days after his disappearance, and official sources state he drowned in the river but Human Rights organizations remain skeptical since the reasons for his abduction remain to be clarified. His disappearance triggered mass demonstrations in the Plaza de Mayo as well as several artistic interventions (BBC Mundo, 2017)

neighborhoods and, 6) the Falklands War (Comisión provincial por la memoria, n.d.-a).The only condition of participation, aside for a group of at least four students, is the involvement of a teacher who supervises the research process and the content presented at the final meeting. This meeting takes place at the end of the school year in a weekly excursion to the tourist center of Chapadmalal. Throughout the program, the CPM and SMHR provide schools with visual and documentary sources to be used as guidelines in the project meetings, and arrange guided tours to the Ex-ESMA so that students can be given a firsthand explanation on state terrorism and Human Rights. The program's impact has been far-reaching since the excursion to Chapadmalal has included approximately thirteen thousand students and the participation of more than one thousand schools. Between 2011 and 2016, the program has helped teenagers develop “280 projects, 80 videos, ten theatre plays, six books, three monographs, four photographic displays, five web pages, five multimedia CDs, 12 magazines and leaflets and 15 murals or urban interventions” (Raggio, 2006, p. 4). By stimulating students to inquire about the unresponsiveness of the state and encourage their participation in demonstrations or artistic initiatives, the program helps teenagers to become part of the political manifestations of their society (Jelin, 2014). For this reason, student agency and critical thinking skills are vital components of the Youth and Memory program. A manifesto written by a group of students for the 2016 edition of the program reflects this vision: "What is left for the youth today? Poverty? Indifference? Fear? Resignation in the face of an absent state? No. What is left is the spirit of rebellion in our hearts that activates our mind to think with freedom, to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to fight for our rights" (Comisión provincial por la memoria, n.d.-a).38 Constructing Memories follows a similar format to the Youth and Memory program, but since its target audience is school teachers and other specialists from the educational sector, more attention is paid to the theoretical component of the course. The workshops and lessons take place on a weekly basis and last for five months. Courses are given by different experts in the field of memory, state Terrorism, militancy and Human Rights pedagogy. Previous editions have included conferences given by personalities such as Eduardo Jozami (ex-detainee, journalist and Human rights activist), Irene Strauss (director

38 Translation from Spanish by the author.”¿Qué nos queda a los jóvenes hoy? ¿La pobreza? ¿La indiferencia? ¿El miedo? ¿Resignarnos a un Estado ausente?”, se preguntaba uno de los manifiestos y las voces de los pibes respondían: “Nos queda el corazón, la rebeldía. Nos activa ser libres para pensar, para ponerse en el lugar del otro, para luchar por nuestros derechos” (Comisión provincial por la memoria, n.d.-a).

of communication in the Abuelas organization) and Gabriel Rot (researcher on political and social activism) (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2017a). The aim of Constructing Memories is to give teachers sufficient academic background and documentary sources so they can address the themes of Human Rights violations and dictatorship in a way that encourages student involvement in political issues.

Reparation

If impunity exists where there is no accountability for past crimes, then counteracting it means confronting and redressing the legacies of the abuses by implementing the rule of law. In this sense, the notion of reparation is inextricably tied to the first criminal prosecution carried out in Argentina's transition to democracy in 1985: the Trial of the Juntas. This event had long-lasting cultural effects because, since then, the judicial sphere has "has been positioned as the main Human Rights claim field" (Jelin, 2014, p. 232). Therefore, victims and solidarity organizations have continuously appealed to this sphere in their struggle against silence and complicity. Prosecution demonstrates an authority which will hold perpetrators responsible for crimes and prevent social groups from resorting to violence to have their demands met. Ultimately, these associations consider the judicial branch to be the basis of a fully-fledged democracy is constructed. As previously stated, Human Rights associations have focused their demands on reparation by pressuring the state to prosecute military members and civilians implicated in the dictatorial regime. They have collected oral testimonies as well as visual and written evidence to aid the former Truth Trials (1998-2008) and the judicial investigations that reopened with the Megacausas. By taking control of old SDC's around the country, Human Rights groups have established these landmarks as irrefutable proofs of systematic repression and have gained access to material evidence that was previously unavailable. In recent years the SMHR has become a leading example of the accountability process. In 2004 Human Rights organizations, in collaboration with the Secretary of Human Rights, created a commission to monitor the relocation of navy offices and carry out extensive forensic research of the ESMA to single out material evidence that would be useful for future prosecutions (Van Drunen, 2010). Once all the evidence was systematized, the Megacausa ESMA could begin to judge members from the Grupo de Tareas 3.3 (Task Force 3.3), which operated within the ESMA buildings and were responsible for the violations committed there.

It is no surprise then that the importance of the terrain as a legal evidence has influenced the content offered to the public, the narrative, and the manner of display used by the Public Entity. The SMHR has created a website that provides information, key highlights and latest news about the three stages of this trial in Juicio día a día (the trial day to day). Located at the top of the webpage the organization gives precedence to the Megacausa above any other organizational website. On the website, visitors can read the interviews and articles about the trial procedures and various documents produced by the trials, such as requirements for bringing a crime to trial, the rules to apply for a petition of cassation and a verdict on the trials. Since 2014, along with the second phase of the Megacausa, the SMHR has also published eight issues of a magazine, Trial Diaries, that give an in-depth explanation of the different stages of the trials, the name, and biography of the perpetrators and the different types of crimes they committed. They also contain information about suspects' declarations, the name and stories of the disappeared within the ESMA, details of how to participate as a witness and the locations where the trials are taking place (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2013b, 2014b). Similarly, the Public Entity has devoted the last of its three educational programs to teaching secondary students about the trials carried out against state Terrorism (Megacausa ESMA, Plan Condor Trials, and A.B.O. Trials) (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2016).39 Named as The School goes to Trials, the program was created in 2010 as an initiative of a staff member of the Commission for Memory in the province of Buenos Aires, who proposed to involve students in an audience that was taking place in La Plata regarding an SDC entitled Unidad 9 (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2014c, p. 2).After a year of negotiations with the Judiciary Branch to authorize students below sixteen to attend the audiences, the Commission officially started the program in 2013. Since then, the program has expanded to over a hundred and twenty schools and, students have attended fifty-three different oral proceedings in 2016 alone. Spread over nine months, the School goes to Trial is divided into three parts, of which two are theoretical, and the third

39 The Plan Cóndor Trials are a pioneering prosecution unfolding in the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos which are responsible for prosecuting the Human Rights Violations committed across Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil as part of an integrated effort in tracking and eliminating leftist political dissidents who had taken refuge across South America. On the other han, the A.B.O. III trial is in charge of judging two military members involved in the kidnapping and torture within the Atlético, Banco and Olimpo SDC’s labeled as Circuito ABO (BBC, 2017; Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, n.d.-a, n.d.-b; Lessa, 2017).

based around empirical research. Firstly, students receive separate lessons on the history of dictatorships in Argentina, the main events that gave way to the 1976-1983 regime and the history of the Human Rights movement. Secondly, pupils learn about the trials that have emerged as a result of Argentina's transition to democracy and the contextual reasons for their foreclosure from 1986 until 1999. Thirdly, the SMHR explains the functioning of the nation's judicial system and criminal procedures, and trains pupils to understand the figures involved within the process (plaintiffs, attorneys, judges, witnesses, etc.). Throughout the process, teachers receive a similar training to the one arranged for the Youth and Memory or Constructing Memories programs. Apart from receiving historical lessons, docents assist workshops to learn how to communicate the pedagogic material provided by the SMHR and lead the sessions once students have attended oral procedures. By the end of the course, both teachers and pupils have been sufficiently informed about judicial mechanisms, Crimes against Humanity and Human Rights violations to follow up on future prosecutions and attend successive trials. The program ensures the rendering of justice and directly contributes to in the transitional guarantees of non-repetition. On a museological scale, the SMHR has developed two small projects coherent with the reparative function. One of them is the 2017 outdoor exhibition The Trials. Crimes Against Humanity (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2017c). Consisting of four panels, it presents the history of the Megacausa ESMA and other trials against state terrorism in Argentina. The exhibition was followed up with the academic conference organized by the Public entity to discuss the ‘flights of death’ Megacausa ESMA: the verdict is coming (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, 2017b). The second project is the exhibit Preserve to Transmit Memory located in the Cuatro Columnas (See Appendix M). Aimed at showing the tasks of conservation and retrieval of information carried out by the forensic team, it displays eight testimonies of ex-detainees, four different objects and two signatures found at the Casino. The declarations, all extracted from oral proceedings, are presented on small banners that give visitors a glimpse into the day-to-day experiences of the SDC. Three cabinets, standing beside the banners, show the four objects which have been arranged separately according to whether they are proofs of existence or incriminating evidence. Therefore, the first two cabinets display traces of cigarette butts, a coca cola cap decorated by an anonymous prisoner, and the signatures engraved into the walls of the building by two ex-detainees named Horacio Maggio and Ernesto de Marco. Testimonies explain the use these objects had for the detainees and, along with the signatures and photographs showing the provenance of the items, constitute

a proof of the prisoner’s presence in the Casino. By contrast, the last cabinet showcases a military badge that belonged to a corvette lieutenant and a towel with the emblem of the Argentinian Navy. The main text of the cabinet explains how Admiral Emilio E. Massera, with the help of other Navy officials, organized the repressive tasks, holding this force responsible for the planning and execution of the crimes carried out in the ESMA. This is the only exhibition arranged by the Public Entity which handles objects retrieved from the Casino. However, the material qualities of the objects presented in the cabinets is secondary. Their importance is primarily based on their use as supporting evidence of the work of the forensic team. Moreover, their coexistence with various art installations reduces the particular significance of these objects as imprints of trauma. Nevertheless, the exhibit points out three different functions which the narrative about state terrorism acquires in the Museum. Firstly, judicial testimonies are given importance above any material evidence, guiding visitors through the SDC and exposing the structure of the repressive apparatus. Secondly, attempts to evoke emotion are limited to the testimonies presented. Any texts displayed alongside testimonies will be primarily descriptive, avoiding identification with the detainees' experience and assuming the voice of a judge that presents clear and convincing evidence of a crime. Thirdly, the narrative counteracts impunity by listing the names and faces of perpetrators so they can be held accountable for their offenses. From the start, the museum provides contextual information about the Casino as an SDC, lists the crimes committed at the site and characterizes the figure of the victims vis-à- vis the culprits, so that visitors are left in no doubt as to who faces the burden of the past,

Here 5,000 men and women were detained and disappeared, political and social militants, members of revolutionary armed and unarmed forces, syndicalists, students, teachers, artists and religious people were, for the most part, thrown alive into the sea. Here the Navy planned kidnappings and killed systematically. Here the prisoners were kept hooded and tortured […] here a Crime against Humanity was committed (Museo sitio de Memoria ESMA, 2015).40

40 Translated from Spanish by the Author. “Aquí estuvieron detenidos-desaparecidos cerca de 5.000 hombres y mujeres. Militantes políticos y sociales, de organizaciones revolucionarias armadas y no armadas, trabajadores y gremialistas, estudiantes, profesionales, artistas y religiosos. La mayoría de ellos fueron arrojados vivos al mar. Aquí la Armada planificó secuestros y llevó a cabo asesinatos de manera sistemática. Aquí mantuvo a los prisioneros encapuchados y engrillados. Aquí los torturó. Aquí los desapareció.[…] Aquí se produjo un crimen contra la humanidad” (Museo sitio de Memoria ESMA, 2015)

Furthermore, the museum clarifies that all the primary sources presented were used by official bodies or courts such as the CONADEP, the Trial of the Juntas or the Megacausa ESMA, in order to demonstrate the truth of their claims. Nevertheless, the museum avoids a complete reconstruction of the site because it does not want to emotionally “paralyze the visitors”, but to interrogate the culprits and stimulate reflection (Brodsky, M., 2005). Therefore, testimonies become the leading authorities within the museological narrative because they constitute a direct link to the past but operate more through "allusion than through direct exposure" (Violi, 2012, p. 41) As the Casino is considered legal evidence in the Trials, the whole museographic display was designed to be portable and removable. The primary materials used are glass panels, and videos. The glass panels, fixed onto a concrete cylindrical structure, give uniformity to the texts presented as well as symbolizing transparency and weight of evidence. The videos, which are used either to introduce oral proceedings of ex-detainees, to reconstruct an environment or to provide a historical context, shed light on more abstract matters, facilitating the visitor's immersion in the theme of state terrorism. Used interchangeably throughout the 17 exhibition halls, the glass panels and the videos give an overall impression of balanced simplicity that does not divert the public's' attention from the traces left by the SDC (See Appendix N). All the tours start on the ground floor where visitors learn about the general historical context of the dictatorial regime, the Navy School of Mechanics and its conversion into an SDC through newspaper clips, audio recordings, photographs, and videos. Afterwards, individuals are guided to the stairs, pass through the first and second floors that were used as naval offices and dormitories, and immediately lead to the spaces that were used for detention and torture in the upper floors. Labeled as Capucha (3rd) and Capuchita (4rth), the names refer to the hoods the prisoners were obliged to wear. The Capuchita is a smaller and more confined space than the Capucha because it was designed as an attic. The texts presented in these spaces follows a similar order. They start off describing the life conditions of those who were locked up. Next, they give a name of the culprits that use to manage the spaces (if known) and, finally, provide a glimpse of the personal experiences of ex-detainees through their written or visual testimony. The visual testimonies presented in Capucha are framed within a legal context (See Appendix O). Others, such as the written testimonies

displayed in the bathrooms and Pecera (3rd), refer to more personal experiences and emphasize how the disappeared-detainees resisted the oppressive environment and counteracted alienation by bonding with others. The Pregnants’ room and the Pañol, which are the last spaces to be seen on the third floor, as well as the basement and the passage towards the Flights of Death, are four rooms in which the museum fully conveys the breakdown of the family and social ties during the dictatorship. The pregnants’ room, unlike the rest of the Museum, breaks with judicial language and morally questions the public by asking: “How is it possible for children to have been born here?”. The panels give a detailed list of the doctors and military involved in the procedures and provides a lengthy explanation, taken from the words of ten ex-detainees, of how the mothers were killed after they gave birth and their offspring were taken by the military, left in orphanages or, in rare cases, returned to their relatives. The Pañol, or storehouse, in which all the detainees’ belongings were saved, contains a projected image based on a photograph taken before the place was emptied in 1978, which reveals the magnitude of the damage caused through the possessions left behind. The basement, served as the entrance and exit point of prisoners, explains the way in which torture was used as a tool through which detainees were induced to provide the navy with names of potential inmates and were transformed into “live bait”, perpetuating the social circle of repression. The passage towards the flight of death, the last station of the SDC complex, is entirely covered in glass but, in this case, instead of symbolizing transparency it translates the complete alienation of human beings from their environment. Able to see their surroundings but unable to act on them, detainees were carried towards certain death in the Plata River (See Appendix P). Nonetheless, visitors are not left with this shocking experience as their final impression since the goal of the museum is to serve as documentary evidence in the struggle for accountability. Therefore, the last hall of the museum, the Salón Dorado, and the Truth, Justice and Memory Plaza have been arranged to demonstrate that the crimes committed at the SDC have been gradually punished. The Salón, previously the place where the military housed special ceremonies and meetings, now contains a horizontal screen and twelve rectangular ones on which are projected the verdicts of the Megacausa ESMA and the criminal biographies of the perpetrators included in the Grupo de Tareas 3.3. Placed below each of the projections are military portraits which reference Kirchner’s 2004 symbolic gesture of commanding the removal of the portraits of Videla and Bignone that were still present in the Military College (Sosa, 2016; Van Drunen, 2010). Having listened to

an audio recording of the verdicts, visitors see the portraits of those who have been sentenced stamped with the label “Condemned”. To complement the judicial narrative, the Truth, Justice and Memory Plaza, located at the exit of the Casino, presents life-size photographs from the commemoration ceremony of March 24, 2004, in which Human Rights groups were given full authority over the ESMA and their account over the dictatorial past achieved official status. By grounding the analysis in the Cuatro Columnas and Casino, this chapter has tried to give a glimpse of SMHR’s eclectic and plural character. Even though the Public Entity has been able to condense the Human Rights groups’ and state’s outlook on the dictatorial past, SMHR illustrates the challenges involved in combining diverse organizational histories, missions, and goals. What at first glance appears to be a general agreement was the result of months of intense negotiation between the state and the various associations with their diverging, or even conflicting views of the functions which the former SDC buildings should assume in the present or how the SMHR should pay homage to the disappeared. Regardless of their differences, it can be concluded that each Human Rights organization agreed that the main purpose of SMHR, as well as other former SDCs, is to achieve reparation for past wrongdoings. SMHR's cultural products may be directed towards one of the three functions mentioned above but ultimately work together to underline society’s moral obligation to judge the crimes committed during the Dictatorship, and to argue that until society comes to terms with its historical debt on a judicial level, it will not be able to become a fully-fledged democracy. Nevertheless, the struggle for Truth, Justice, and Reparation has gone beyond the Dictatorial regime in Argentina, expanding its Human Rights advocacy in collaboration with other countries of the Southern Cone and Latin America. As Argentina was the first country in the region to implement reparative measures within a democratic transition, its experience has become a referent for its neighbors, not only with regards to legal justice but also regarding memorialization initiatives (El Pacifista, 2015). Most of the Human Rights Organizations that make up the SMHR have established alliances or networks to oversee the implementation of Duty of Memory within regional state policies, helping victims to seek the whereabouts of their loved ones or sharing management strategies with other Latin American memory sites. For example, Mercosur IPPDH (2012) established the regional guidelines on public policies for Sites of Memory, which are now ratified by the Argentinian, Brazilian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan States. H.I.J.O.S has created satellite organizations in countries that received Argentinian exiles (Spain, France, and the Netherlands) and its

institutional mission has been imitated by other four Latin American youth collectives that mobilize the community in favor of their cause and practice escraches to publicly shame perpetrators.41 Colombia is one of these four representative countries, following a left-wing political approach and focusing on condemning state and paramilitary (H.I.J.O.S-Bogotá, 2017; H.I.J.O.S., n.d.).The EAAF has contributed to the historical reconstruction of Human Rights violations in forty-four countries around the world, thirteen of which are in Latin American (EAAF, 2009).42 In Colombia, the EAAF has been present at International Seminars of Forensic Science and Human Rights held at different national academies, and has provided lectures and training for members of the Prosecutor's Office and the School of Criminology. Additionally, it has assisted the state and victims’ associations in three cases concerning assassination and disappearance: The National Justice Palace (1985), Pueblo Bello (1990) and Las Palmeras (1991) (EAAF, n.d.) Wishing to group memory entrepreneurs, Memoria Abierta became one of the founding members of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (1999) and, since 2006, has coordinated the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Sites of Memory (RESLAC) which now consists of forty institutions in twelve countries and hosts annual meetings to strengthen inter-regional cooperation; Colombia hosted the 2015 edition in Bogotá (Centro de memoria paz y reconciliación, 2017; Red de Sitios de memoria Latinoamericana y Caribeños, 2015). Finally, the education department of the IEM has also carried out international public outreach programmes. In 2011 when the MHM was opening its doors to the public, the IEM gave a workshop on Memory Management for the IV Semana de la memoria (VI Week for Memory), and, along with above-mentioned organizations, helped to shape Colombia's Duty of Memory (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2011).

41 The other Latin American Countries are: Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua y Colombia (H.I.J.O.S., n.d). 42 These countries are: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, México, Paraguay, Panamá, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela (EAAF, 2009).

CHAPTER II: A House to stage Duty of Memory

There is one videoclip displayed in the MHM’s permanent exhibition, Medellín Memorias de Violencia y Resistencia (Medellín. Memories of Violence and Resistance), which powerfully illustrates the impact of the armed conflict on Colombian society.43 In it, we see four family members, a house and a scenery all made out of soil abruptly disassembled by anonymous hands. These hands erase the landscape and turn the figures into small lumps. Now in an empty space, the four lumps are moved from one side to another according to the whims of the hands, unable to become individual forms again. There is no ending or resolution in sight, the video is an endless loop. Initially produced to describe the experience of forced displacement, the video also translates the shattered sense of belonging and collective identity produced by Colombia’s long-standing conflict. The proliferation and intermixing of armed actors in the country, the difficulty of making sense of their reasons for dispute, and the impossibility of communicating openly due to the continued threats and deaths imposed by these actors, generates a shared memory of violent events. This memory eludes categorization and the creation of an intelligible historical account. History becomes a list of unending catastrophic events that forbid a complete engagement with the past, a fundamental activity for individuals trying to make sense of who they are (Riano-Alcala, 2006). In hotly disputed territories, each of the armed groups imposes their own contradictory norms and conditions, further blocking collective processes of identity formation that give communities a sense of agency and rootedness. As Pécaut (2004) suggested, the result is a loss of the spatial and chronological referents, or senses of place, that would otherwise enable collective memory to produce coherent interpretations of the past that can be shared by all individuals. Fragmented social relations and senseless violence are all that remain. When solidarity groups became increasingly professionalized in the nineties, transforming into NGOs that received funding and training offered by international partners, the cultural sector was seen as an important sphere of intervention to make sense of the conflict and foster democratic coexistence. The absence of political platforms after the fall of Communism lead former left-wing members of solidarity groups to focus their efforts

43 This video belongs to experience no.11 named Tables. It belongs to the theme of Forced displacement and it is currently displayed on the center of the exhibition hall.

towards artistic and pedagogic activities as a means of promoting Human Rights, social inclusivity and peacebuilding (Tate, 2007). National and regional organizations such as Centre for Research and Popular Education (CINEP) and Popular Training Institute (IPC) in Antioquia carried out research to provide training and community support to rural inhabitants so that they could integrate human rights discourse into local management practices. Furthermore, within Medellín, organizations such as Nuestra Gente (Our people) (1987), Barrio Comparsa (Neighborhood Troupe) (1990) and Ruta Pacífica Mujeres (Women’s Peaceful Route) (1995) used theatre, dancing, literature and visual arts as mediums to foster environments of participation and solidarity that would break with the day-to-day violence of the comunas (Museo Casa de la Memoria, n.d.-c). Mindful of the impact these initiatives had on the local population, these projects would serve as precedents for the future Laboratorios de Paz (Laboratories of Peace) program directed by CINEP and financed by the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union in the 2000s which encourage sustainable development, institutional dialogue and artistic collaboration (Barreto Henriques, 2016). The academic sector, by supporting Human Rights groups’ claims also underscored the widely held idea in society that there was no end to the conflict in sight. Many social scientists actively engaged with the armed conflict as an epistemological and ethical concern to reevaluate the need for violent resolutions. Labeled as violentólogos (violentologists), these individuals distanced themselves from the production of a historical narrative which would validate the ethnic and political exclusions that had fueled conflict, and instead began to employ a framework of memory to scrutinize and correct the omissions in official versions of the past (Hatfield, 2014; Núñez, 2013). Through the use of memory, intellectuals expressed the need to assign meaning to the narratives of violence and transform the horror into a coherent series of causes and effects (GMH, 2013). Whilst most of the crimes remained unsolved, academic clarifications set a precedent for legal accountability and become a ‘soft’ form of punishment that perpetrators would not be able to deny or escape. As in Argentina, silence was seen as an opponent but, in Colombia, its danger sprung its power to alienate individuals in zones of conflict and perpetuate the violent status quo. Producing knowledge about the conflict had the power of inserting individual histories into the public sphere, questioning the perpetrators’ discourse and demanding social engagement (Semana, 2007). “The story of violence does not belong just to the victims; it belongs to all society. As a society, we make collective sense of these acts.

As history and as the present, we assign them meaning [...] [Creating] national narratives of violence are crucial for refashioning national identities” (Tate, 2007). It did not take long for Human Rights organizations and academia to join forces and use research and cultural initiatives as tools to acknowledge the victims’ account of the conflict and voice out their demands for economic reparation and political reconciliation. The first of these collaborations was the Trujillo Commission set up by the government in 1994 to inquire into a series of massacres that took place between 1988 and 1991 and resulted in the death of approximately three hundred and forty people in the municipality of Trujillo in the Pacific region of Colombia (Comisión Nacional de Reparación Área Memoria Histórica, 2008). The investigative body included both official and civil society representatives charged with clarifying the events, determining responsibility and recommending compensation for the victims. After handing out the final report, the state declared itself guilty of negligence and, following the recommendations of the Commission, committed itself to compensating the damage by honoring the dead and carrying out development projects, infrastructure reconstruction and peacebuilding activities. The Association of Relatives of the Victims of Trujillo (AFAVIT) was created in 1995 as a response to the report, and this organization was put in charge of supervising the state’s compensation activities. Unfortunately, most of the peacebuilding and infrastructure projects devised by the government failed due to inefficiency, corruption and the continued presence of paramilitary members. Nevertheless, the government granted AFAVIT’s demand for a Parque Monumento (park monument) by partially investing in the terrain and the designs made for it. Between 1998 and 2003 AFAVIT was forced to turn to private investors and international agencies to complete the construction of the park. The space consists of a gallery of memory containing photographs and stories of people that were killed between 1988-1994, an outdoor Ruta de la memoria (Route of Memory) that gives visitors a historical context of the violence lived in Trujillo, a seven-story ossuary, symbolizing the years of violence lived in the town, with the name and reliefs of 235 victims and a mausoleum for father Tiberio Fernandez, the primary religious figure to have stood up to the guerrilla and paramilitary.44 Along with the monument, the AFAVIT created a communitarian book,

44 Tiberio Fernández Malla, or Father Tiberio, used to be the main priest in the municipality of Trujillo renowned not only for his religious service but for also for the training he offered to communitarian leaders and his fierce defense of the municipality against the various armed groups (ELN, Paramilitaries, Militaries, and Drug Traffickers) who attempted to take control of the area. When he was coming back from an excursion with two

composed of poems and drawings in which individuals express their gratitude to father Tiberio and pay tribute to his sacrifice (Comisión Nacional de Reparación Área Memoria Histórica, 2008). This park stands as the first commemorative initiative carried out by a victims’ organization in Colombia. The combination of natural elements and religious symbolism within the monument have been established as iconographic referents for later monuments. The monument ensures not only proper burial to the dead but also conceives of artistic expression as a type of psychosocial assistance. As one of the guides of the Parque Monumento, Ludivia Vanegas, mentions, “through art and culture one can express all that one feels, these activities help us to remain stable, not only to express the pain one feels but also to inform other cultures that violence does no good” (Ministerio de Cultura, 2014)(See Appendix Q).45 Immediately following AFAVIT’s example, Human Rights organizations in Antioquia such as Association of United Victims of the Granada Municipality (ASOVIDA) in the town of Granada and Centre for Approach, Reconciliation and Reparation (CARE) in San Carlos created their galleries, memory parks and testimony books between 2003 and 2009. With the financial assistance of CNRR, ASOVIDA adapted the cultural space Ramón Eduardo Duquey and renamed it the Salón Nunca Más (Never More Salon). The space displays colored photographs of the five hundred and twenty-eight people who were either killed or disappeared during the armed incursions of the paramilitary and the guerrilla (1998-2004) as well as newspaper extracts and artistic representations of the conflict. The place also serves as a headquarters for ASOVIDA where conferences on Memory and Human Rights are held and where inhabitants, especially the relatives of the victims, can communicate with their lost loved ones by writing messages in a series of record books displayed for this purpose (Pinilla, 2017). Near to the Salon a commemorative plaque financed by the government has been installed in one of the town’s squares. The square is additionally decorated with drawings of trees and multi-colored rocks inscribed with the names of victims, accentuating its importance.

friends and his niece on the 17th of April 1990, they were all kidnapped, tortured and killed by the paramilitary groups. His body was quartered and thrown into the Cauca River to be found and identified by Police members a few days later. His head was never found and that is why the depiction of his crucified body in the Ossuary has not been drawn (El Espectador, 2010; Tate, 2007). 45 Translated from Spanish by the author: “A través del arte y la cultura uno va expresando todo lo que uno siente, eso lo ayuda a uno a mantenerse firme, a expresar no sólo el dolor que uno siente sino para que otras culturas se informen que la violencia no es nada buena”. Testimony taken from Ministerio de Cultura (2014) minutes 2:16 to 2:52.

San Carlos has reproduced the park idea in its municipality (2006) and named it The Jardín de la Memoria (Garden of Memory). Located in the central square, the garden inscribes the names of the victims and those who were subject to forced displacement in flower shapes that resemble foliage. Instead of creating a memory gallery, the CREA has turned a former paramilitary headquarters into an educational and psychological center through which, with the help of the mental health group PROVISAME, they carry out group workshops for relatives and survivors. Additionally, CREA has designed social campaigns to follow up on disappearance cases by fabricating a floral arrangement with the names of victims through which they keep track on the people whose death still needs to be clarified and hands out maps of the municipality to the inhabitants so they can anonymously give information about common graves (See Appendix R). As an expression of grassroots acts of memorialization, these initiatives are exemplary cases which grouped ’memory artifacts’ that were previously present within towns and cities but were not regarded as a group practice. Over the decades, altars, stations of the cross, murals and white crosses had been constructed by relatives but, scattered silently throughout the landscape, usually passed unnoticed (Arenas, 2012). Collective forms of memorialization and documentation were practically nonexistent, either because mass forced displacement created ghost towns that resisted commemoration or because relatives were afraid the armed actors would perceive these initiatives as acts of defiance and retaliation would follow. However, once memory parks and galleries started to make their appearance in Trujillo, Granada and San Carlos, widespread communitarian support helped underground memories surface and challenged silence through landmarks and collective memory acts such as candlelit marches, dances, and protests (Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional, 2009). Even when these memorialization initiatives did not originate in the mainstream artistic and cultural centers, they created a snowball effect that resonated within the Colombian museum field by the turn of the century and lead these institutions to reflect on the role they played in perpetuating cultural referents that maintained exclusions and triggered violence. Colombian official museums, like other Latin American institutions, were initially conceived as spaces to safeguard the history of the newly formed nation-states which immortalized the grand heroes and major events that lead to independence and legitimized the power of the creole ruling class (Museo Nacional de Colombia., 2000). Therefore, by underlying the social belief in one nation, one language (Spanish) and one religion (Catholicism), these museums disregarded the diverse ethnic, political and religious

realities of their countries that ultimately validated the social inequalities of their societies. Influenced by the acquired sensibility towards publics in the international museological field and eager to support the wave of plurality created by the 1991 Constitution, some official museums endorsed peacebuilding projects by empowering marginalized communities and enabling them to control their own representation. They began to grant access to collections, voices, and narratives of those who had been considered second-class citizens under an elitist institutional approach. Instead of imposing a hegemonic interpretation about the past, the museums strived to turn these institutions into spaces of encounter, debate, and reflection on the relationship of nation-building projects with conflict and memory.46 Slowly transforming themselves into socially-committed platforms, these institutions began to amplify the victims’ voices within the narratives of war in Colombia (Museo Nacional de Colombia., 2012). The leading museums in this kind of approach were The National Museum, the Antioquia Museum and System of museums of the National University of Colombia, especially the Arts and the San Agustín Cloister.47 The National Museum has, since 1994, organized annual conferences open to the general public to reflect on topics such as the participation of minorities, forced displacement, memory, peace negotiations, and the role of museums in reconciliation processes (López, 2013). For the first time, Human Rights groups were included within discussions and encouraged to actively engage with museum professionals to construct a historical narrative of Colombia’s history. The lessons drawn from these conferences later produced seven historical exhibitions about armed conflict and peace between 1999-2010, the first to be shown by any official institution. Of the seven, three narrated the conflict through the eyes and the experiences of victims. These were: Cacarica: Tierra de vida (Cacarica: Land of Life) in 2000, Peque: El destierro (Peque: the

46 The first lecture on this topic to be presented in a Museum was the Ernesto Restrepo Tirado History Symposium named Museums, Memory and Nation. The mission of state Museums for the citizens of the future held at the National Museum of Colombia between the 24th and 26th of November 1999 (Museo Nacional de Colombia., 2000). 47 The system of museums of the National University comprises eight institutions in Bogotá (BO), Medellín (MD) and Villa de Leyva (VL): The San Agustín Cloister (BO), the Arts Museums (BO), the Architecture Museum Leopoldo Rother (BO), House-Museum of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (BO), the Criminology and Forensic Studies Museum (BO), The Mineralogy Museum (MD), the Francisco Gallego Entomology Museum (BO) and the Paleontology Museum (VL).

Uprooting) 2002-2003 and Fragmentos de exilio y desarraigo (Fragments of Exile and Uprooting) in 2003 (Pardo, 2014, p. 20).48 Meanwhile, the Antioquia Museum, the Arts Museum and the San Agustín Cloister of the National University focused on programming events to stimulate the creation of public policies of memory within museums and the engagement of political and social movements which had until then been marginalized in the cultural sphere. The aim was not only to reconfigure the history of violence in the country but to produce a set of strategies in which museums could play their part in the reconstruction of the social and political bonds ravaged by war. In 2008 The National University organized a five-day lecture in the San Agustín Cloister about the role of museums in defining memory as an individual and collective right (López, 2013). In the same year, the Antioquia Museum produced the temporary exhibit Destierro y Reparación (Exile and Reparation) in which victims’ organizations and national and international artists joined forces to address the problematic issue of refugees within national and international borders. It transcended aesthetic explorations and articulated a series of educational activities to engage visitors with the theme and dignify the victims of forced displacement in Colombia (El Tiempo, 2008). Despite the effort of these museums to engage the public and different social movements in the elaboration of a different narrative around the armed conflict, these efforts were confined to temporary exhibitions and lectures, rather than being seen as the core of institutional programs. The initiatives carried out by the three separate institutions were conducted independently, rather than being centralized into long-lasting museum policies. As a result, the social impact of these museological projects was limited to the time of production and implementation (López, 2013). The cultural sector realized the need for a specific type of museum, whose sole purpose would be to give meaning to the ongoing conflict and provide a permanent place to recognize victims’ suffering and perspective. After all, the previous museological collaborations with social organizations had demonstrated that keeping cultural institutions distant from Colombia’s painful reality was indirectly supporting the perpetrator’s law of silence. The failure to socially question and

48 The remaining exhibitions to deal with historical conflicts in the National Museum are: Cien Años de los Mil Días/ Hundred years of the Thousand Years) (October 21, 1999 - August 12, 2000), Tiempos de paz. Acuerdos en Colombia 1902-1994 / Times of peace. Peace agreements in Colombia 1902-1994 (August 14, 2003 - November 2, 2003), Galán Vive / Galán Lives (August 12, 2009 - January 10, 2010), Hacer la paz en Colombia “Ya vuelvo”, Carlos Pizarro / Making the peace in Colombia “I'll be back”, Carlos Pizarro (September 9, 2010 - March 27, 2011) (Pardo, 2014, p. 20).

reevaluate the human costs of a war that was slowly eroding Colombia’s economic and social capital had the effect of turning museums into beautiful but useless repositories of objects. Through the integration of excluded narratives such as the testimonies of survivors these institutions could finally become effective cultural actors and, in some way, contribute to the reconciliation process in Colombia. In 2006, this goal was achieved when the MHM project was conceived as part of the municipality's Victim Unit reparation strategy. Drawing from Trujillo, San Carlos, and Granada's example, the MHM undertook the task of recovering public spaces that had once been controlled by the paramilitary and intervening on the landscape through the use of natural elements and commemorative plaques that emphasized sociability, mourning, and healing. This act had already been referenced by Human Rights advocates as “recovering spaces from war” (Rodríguez, 2008). The museum also translated the local debates about the role these institutions could have in empowering marginalized communities by strengthening their capacity for self-representation and self-governance. Overall, the MHM project reflected the state's and Human Rights groups’ outlook on peace as a complete social process that combined economic intervention with infrastructure renovation and social work. This viewpoint would, henceforth, set a precedent for future state-funded initiatives such as the National Museum of Memory (2011-). Within its mission and vision, the MHM has outlined three separate but related functions. Firstly, the museum should help mourn the dead as well as acknowledge the resilience of victims who have resisted and confronted the continuous threats of different armed groups in the absence of government support. Secondly, the institution is responsible for constructing a narrative that determines the root causes of the armed conflict and identifies its principal actors and the consequences of past violations. Thirdly, the MHM should become an agent of social transformation, which, by re-evaluating historical and collective destructive actions, will help build a new society, one in which “conflicts can be peacefully resolved and one in which life is both valued and respected” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 9). The building block of these three functions is the concept of reparation as defined by the Colombian state. As outlined in the Victims’ Law, reparation is the act of paying off a historical debt to both victims and society. Therefore, it should fulfill five conditions: the re-adaptation of the victims and their families, the reconstruction of their capacities for agency, the re-elaboration of the facts, the regeneration of the bonds of trust and the re-establishment of the social fabric (Presidencia de la República & Congreso Nacional, 2011, p. 5). The first function of the MHM, which I will

refer to as recognition, addresses re-adaptation on a symbolical level by inserting the excluded narratives of the victims within the public sphere. Clarification, the second goal, is mainly focused on contextualization and re-elaboration of facts. Finally, the third goal, or restoration, aims at regenerating trust, reconstructing agencies and renewing social cohesion. In the next part of this chapter, I will ground my analysis of these three functions in the permanent exhibition, and then point out those initiatives within public programme and community outreach that embody these approaches. The permanent exhibition is divided into sixteen different ‘experiences’ that display and represent the conflict mainly through the eyes of victims and bystanders but that use a wide range of mediums, from videos and photographs to artworks and music. In order to orient the readers, I have provided a map of the exhibit, but instead of outlining it according to the tour given by the MHM, I have organized the display according to the three functions and assigned them a different color; blue for recognition, orange for clarification and green for restoration (See Appendix S. Map of the exhibition).

Recognition

The expression of violence in Colombia denies citizens, and their memories, the right to occupy a physical and social space. Concerned with surviving everyday life, a narrow view in which only the present exists, many individuals do not have the opportunity to either create long-lasting life projects or mourn the losses provoked by the conflict. “There was no time for sadness,” explains one of the documentary slogans of the CNMH. This statement does not imply that pain was inaccessible or indescribable to the ones who suffered, but rather that silence was a deliberate strategy of containment so that lives could be protected (Arenas, 2012; Pollak, 1989). Through this function the MHM not only recognizes the silence and absence but, most importantly, provides a space in which memories can take root. Recognition turns statistics into a human face, a voice, a body. This function centers on publicly acknowledging victims as legal subjects, validating their viewpoints and honoring their memory. Its primary aim is to promote a series of activities, projects, and spaces through which people can express their pain and link personal losses to public acts of commemoration. It assumes that by connecting citizens with the victims' testimony, they will be able to understand the impact of the conflict on a social scale. By recalling suffering

and loss, recognition provokes empathy and values recollections primarily due to their affective dimension: “to remember is to make the heart feel once more” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015, 10). The content elicits emotional responses by activating different senses, especially hearing, vision and touch through which the goal of the MHM is “less to tell us exactly what happened than what it felt like to experience an event” (Zembylas & Bekerman, 2008, p. 130).49 Even before entering the MHM, it is clear that recognition is one of the more significant components of the institution. As visitors walk up the entrance or as soon as they go out from one of the lateral exits of the museum, they spot a memorial that consists of 980 name plates arranged in ascending levels, similar to Trujillo's ossuary but on a smaller scale. Each of these translucent plaques has a personal signature where the names of victims have been engraved using their relatives' handwriting and, in some cases, contain a private message. On the bottom part of the plaque, the victimizing fact and the place and date of the victim's death is specified. Some indicate the form of kinship that existed between victims and relatives. Occasionally visitors and relatives leave offerings such as letters, small personal items, and flowers beside the plaques, expressing their affection towards the deceased and using the monument as a symbolic graveyard, especially in cases where the person's body has not been found. Each year on the 9th of April the MHM encourages citizens to visit the museum's outdoor memorial, as well as others that surround the city, to leave flowers as a token of solidarity (See Appendix T) (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2012). Along the entrance, the MHM displays a series of metal cylinders with small grooves that reproduce testimonies of victims, so passersby are not only able to gaze at the absence death has provoked but can also hear the voices of survivors reach out to them (Gómez, B., J, May 4, 2013). The building's facade has been repeatedly covered with portraits of relatives of all social and ethnic backgrounds that gaze at drivers while they cross the avenue. From time to time, the grey surface also serves as a background for theatre shows that invite people to encounter and hear survivors' and relatives experiences acted out in open-air. An example is the Urban Opera's screenplay Memoria: Desterrando el Olvido (Memory: banishing oblivion) presented in 2011, which included a musical presentation of afro- descendent women who were displaced from the native town of Bojayá (Alcaldía de Medellín, 2011)The plaques and cylinders are illuminated every night, creating a ghostly

49 Translated by the author from Spanish. “Recordar es volver a pasar por el corazón” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015, 10).

presence and acting as visual reminders. These imprints, along with the photographs, establish a new type of communitarian bond based on the idea of "victimhood”, clearly pointing out that victims are the foundation of the museum (See Appendix U). Since the MHM is part of the Bicentennial park, the plants which surround the building are usually overlooked. However, it should be noted that the plants, as well as the natural scenery they create, carry their own meanings. All of the of plants surrounding the museum, which were installed by the victims in a symbolic gesture of “repairing and healing in the same act of sowing”, have medicinal properties, such as rough bark and (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 13). Moreover, until very recently one could find a few medium-size pillars with dreamcatchers (Ojibwa talisman) used to border the street, emphasizing the MHM’s potential to dispel unpleasant memories and provide civilians with renewed hope. Inside the permanent display, victims welcome the public to the exhibition through narratives of loss, be it their houses, family and friends, day-to-day experiences or a sense of belonging (Experience no.1). Testimonies are sporadically projected onto a dark mirror and handwriting is used once more to depict the personality of those who narrate. Instead of showcasing countless statements of people who have experienced the same loss and which could probably have the same effect as displaying death statistics, the MHM has selected only seven, so that their value can be heightened. Also known as Absences, each of the testimonies connects the personal with the social dimension of loss. One testimony explains, “Nobody said goodbye to us. Our family members, the neighbors, and friends did not dare to bid us farewell” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 16). Since the content of testimonies is to underline what is no longer present, no specific information about those who testify or those who have been responsible for causing harm is provided. The other three exhibits present in the hall stress the pedagogical value of affect by eliciting feelings of closeness and intimacy that, through a process of identification, help the public understand the burden of the victims' loss. Empathetic power slowly builds up with setting no. 10 and culminates in the immersive experience presented in setting no. 15. The first of these experiences is called Whispers. Stories to yell (No.10). This installation consists of thirteen small wooden boxes with holes attached to the wall, each with a label that relates them to the twelve victimization facts included in the Victim's Law.50 Only activated once individuals press their ears against them, recorded murmurs entrust their pain to visitors as

50 The Victimization facts presented in the wooden boxes are interurban and intraurban displacement, massacre, Anti-personnel mines, sexual violation, forced disappearance, intimidation and estate invasion, torture and homicide

they would do to somebody close to them, appealing to colloquial instead of legal language. Small containers may not be what one has in mind when visualizing the act of yelling, but with them, the MHM explicitly demonstrates how the memory of atrocious events has been forcefully restricted to enclosed spaces, unable to be denounced (Pollack, M., 2006). Experience no. 12, or Life Stories, also appeals to another sense: vision. For the first time in the exhibition, visitors assign a human face to the testimonies they have already read and heard. The experience comprises six life-size screens and twenty-four recordings of people from all social classes, ethnicities, gender identities and political affiliations. The MHM has recorded both victims and bystanders in a shot which creates a semi-immersive experience by framing the interviewees together with their surroundings. Looking directly into the camera, narrators come face-to-face with the public, inviting them to feel as if they were sharing the same space and arousing feelings of familiarity. Able to see their reflections projected on the life-size screens once the video vanishes subtly reminds the public of the possibility that they could be the ones testifying, leaving people to experience the unsettlement victims and witnesses have gone through (See Appendix V). Identification reaches a climax once the public enters the Chamber of Memory (no.15), a sensorial experience that plays with light, darkness, reflections, and sounds to incite contemplation. As visitors enter the room, they find themselves in a dark space filled with seventy black screens. On these screens what, at first sight, appear as twinkling lights gradually transform into colorful projections of photographs which depict victims in joyful settings. Different groups of pictures appear at various times, adding movement to the scene. The effect is amplified by the mirrors surrounding the room, placed strategically so the public can feel immersed in an infinite space. The seemingly ghostly presences of the outdoor memorial have now become intimate memories. Through a series of photographs, victims are captured in blissful life moments such as birthday parties, graduation ceremonies, etc. Conceived following the example of the memorial at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile, the site purposefully creates an ambiance of sacredness, but instead of selecting individual portraits, the MHM expands the frame. The Chamber connects victims with their social environment, paying tribute to the human aspects of the victims that were destroyed by the violence of their deaths (Appendix W). Until now, I have described this function mainly through the lens of remembrance (Ex. 9 of April commemorations). However, within its public programme, MHM conveys recognition through installations and performances, awareness and creative laboratories through which individuals actively engage with painful content and infuse it with meaning.

To begin, the artistic exhibit Verónica (2014) and the performance El Peso de la nación (The weight of the nation) (2016-7) are good examples. In Verónica, the artist José Alejandro Restrepo reinterpreted the experiences of victims through his personal lens. He connected the figure of the mother who holds the photo of its disappeared children to Saint Veronica’s veil, a relic that bears the face of Christ (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2014). El peso de la nación, on the other hand, tackles with the experience of exile. Also called ‘the itinerant sewing box’, this project was assembled by the artists Luna Acosta and Paula Baeza who, together with other volunteers, sewed their national flags out of the clothing given to them by fellow Colombians. These migrants, who fled to Chile escaping the conflict, confided their hardships to the two artists during the clothing collection process, inscribing their experiences onto the fabric that made up the flags (El Tiempo, 2017b). After months of work and support from the MHM in Medellín, the two flags were exhibited in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile, reflecting on the ways these objects can speak of their owners' experience.51 The awareness workshops and what I call “creative laboratories” are another active form of memorialization. Carried out mostly in 2014, these workshops gathered different public organizations with the goal of familiarizing them with the contents of the museum and the importance of being exposed to the loss produced by the conflict (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 19). However, these workshops did not involve victims as active participants, something creative laboratories do. One illustrative case is Des Apariciones (Dis Appearances), a site of experimentation organized by Natalia Botero, who brought together ten mothers and twenty-two teenagers to create family albums, picture cards and a temporary exhibition to pay homage to their absent loved ones for the campaign “A week against forced disappearance in Colombia” (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 88). These types of laboratories also utilize music, theatre and drawing as expressions through which relatives and survivors interact with citizens that have not experienced loss, bringing them closer together and promoting empathic concern (Butler, 2003). The recognition function has even gone past the immediate precinct, literally mobilizing testimonies with the use of mobile units such as the Bus for Memory. The initiative resulted from a communitarian effort that was funded by the municipality, MHM, and other private investors, and takes place in May or the "month in favor of life." The project

51 The Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile has created a glass room surrounded by electric candles placed near the floor which faces onto a photographic collage of disappeared-detainees located on a wall. For a picture of the entire space go to (Karmatrendz, n.d.).

organizes five different routes that take visitors on a four-hour tour around the city directed by citizens who have experienced various forms of violence. The goal was to transform a medium for public transportation into an artistic and performative item, rich in symbols and iconographic elements that translate the experience of the guides and ground it in Medellín's urban landscape. Like the MHM's display, the bus greets the public with a depiction of testimonies of loss, in this case engraved on the suitcases which fill the luggage compartment of the bus. Inside, pictures of victims, pasted to the lateral windows and the upper compartments, accompany the attendees on their tour. Each tour starts outside the MHM and goes through a series of memory sites such as the Villatina Park in which thirteen teenagers were killed by the police, the San Javier neighborhood where the most significant urban military operation was conducted as well as other sites where bombing attacks took place. On each of the five routes, the Bus stops at one different comuna (3, 6, 10, 13 & 14) to highlight the work communitarian leaders, syndicalists, and Human Rights advocates have been carrying out to counteract the effects of violence and offer legal and psychological support to victims. Various spheres, with the logos of the local Human Rights organizations, roll on the floor during the journey causing discomfort in the passengers. They visually illustrate the struggle of these groups to “keep the ball rolling”, seeking accountability for the crimes. Passengers also receive "medicine" from the first-aid kit, made up of words and phrases that have helped victims heal and confront injustice. At the end of the tour, the guides ask visitors to leave an imprint of their experience on the bus, giving them small white plaster figures representing a sufferer. By drawing and coloring over them, passengers "adopt" the victims who are later placed alongside others in a small atrium named the El Santuario de la victimas (Sanctuary of Victims) (Alcaldía de Medellín, 2013; Forjando Futuros, 2013).52 Through recognition, the MHM not only dignifies the lives of those who lived through violence, but also helps to destigmatize their figures which have often been labeled as either guerrilla or paramilitary sympathizers and subjected to continuous retaliation from each of the warring factions. The MHM strives to discredit the widely held idea that the pain inflicted by either of the armed groups was somehow "owed" or "deserved," disregarding the fact that many victims were caught in the crossfire and found themselves arbitrarily vulnerable to abuse (El Espectador, 2012)

52 To get a preview on the Memory Bus, see the following clip: (Telemedellín, 2013)

Clarification

In its most basic form, clarification is the function of the academic approach of the MHM which seeks to answer the questions why, when, where and how. This function aims to unravel the structural dynamics of the conflict and reveal its internal logic, drawing from the archival research of official (governmental reports, newspapers, etc.) and unofficial sources (Human Rights organizations, artworks, etc.). Clarification combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to visualize the social impact of the conflict and communicate the modes of violence employed by armed actors, calling to attention the social groups most harshly affected by their violations. As in recognition, this function emphasizes a pluralistic account of the conflict in which the voice of individuals of different social, ethnic and gender identities reconstruct its history and attempt to create a coherent narrative out of what a series of confrontations and retaliations of diffused responsibility. Overall, clarification supports truth-seeking initiatives by highlighting individual and shared responsibilities, training visitors in academic research and deepening their understanding of the contemporary realities of Colombia. The outcome of this function is to shed light on the structural problems in Colombian society which continue to perpetuate armed conflict, so that citizens can integrate this knowledge within their individual work. Within the display, seven of the sixteen experiences are centered on clarification, providing a view of the conflict on local, regional and national scales (no. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14). The museum relies on photojournalism, newspapers, paintings, statistics, maps, models, video clips, and artistic representations to create an overall picture of the areas affected by conflict. Due to the large quantities of information available, it is conveyed through 3D models, audiovisual media, and interactive screens. In most of the settings, visitors can freely choose which historical aspects they want to explore. However, this function does follow an order. It begins by familiarizing the public with the geographical landscape of Antioquia and Medellín, then provides statistical and chronological information about the conflict and ends by displaying photographs and artworks that depict its impact through the personal lenses of journalists and artists. The MHM starts off by acquainting visitors with the physical geography of Antioquia so that visitors can gain an insight into the sociopolitical realities of the region. Labeled as Nostalgic Landscapes (no.2), this setting is an eight-minute video installation made in collaboration with the Association of Antioquian Farmers. As a complement to Absences

(no.1), the setting is mostly composed of unpopulated scenes of the rural areas of Antioquia. Here and there various inhabitants suggest the human and cultural fabric of the coasts and valleys, but the video mostly focuses on portraying the spaces displaced people used to inhabit and were forced to leave behind. The video installation also implicitly refers to the inequities of land distribution, illustrating the large haciendas that appear throughout the territory and that, unlike other settlements, appear to remain untouched by the havoc of war. Following this installation, Medellín. Horizons and Frontiers (no.3), arranges a 3D model of the city from the year of its foundation in 1542 until the start of the 21st Century to indicate how the social problems of Medellín are embodied spatially. A video beam projects moving images onto a corrugated surface indicating the way in which Medellín has resulted from rural migratory waves which were caused by the conflict and translated into the urban environment via the expansion of slums and overpopulated areas. The geographical component ends with a video wall installation (experience no.5) on the left side of the main hall, which shows present-day Medellín through the daily experiences of four citizens living in each of the corners of the city, and explore it from dawn to dusk. The inhabitants show that the city carries multiple meanings depending on one’s vantage point and give a glimpse of the city's underlying social issues. Nevertheless, the three experiences look beyond the traces of conflict embodied in the human and natural geography of Antioquia, highlighting how the "conditions of settlement and territorial planning should be considered key factors in conflict resolution" (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 22). The transition between geographies and chronologies is Sensible Territories (no.4). This setting is made up of three tablets containing a statistical map organized according to the following topics: victimizing facts in Antioquia, emblematic cases of violence in Medellín and urban Sites of Memory. Based on the Basta Ya! report published by the CNMH and other official records of victim registry, the map shows how various victimizing facts are distributed throughout the region, and gives information about each of the armed groups active in the area. Emblematic cases and Sites of Memory approach maps from a sociological perspective, outlining the way Medellin has lived the violence in contrast to other cities and how different commemorative sites have responded to it. Emblematic cases, for example, show the number of events that have characterized Medellín as a "city of terror" in the 80s and 90s, focusing on the confrontations between the police and the Medellín Cartel. Sites of Memory complements this information by highlighting the murals, altars and monuments created by citizens as a way to honor the casualties of this violence.

The Chronologies (no.8) expands the chronological and geographical framework of the previous experiences by connecting the regional events to the national and international contexts that influenced them. Placed on seven different screens, the timeline contains photographs, documents, newspaper articles and videos that track the development of the conflict from 1946 to the present. It is formed by four horizontal axes and five vertical ones. The horizontal axes divide the information depending on whether the events have taken place Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia or abroad. The vertical ones divide the timeline into five historical periods characterized by different forms of violence: 1946- 1958:“Bipartisan violence and military regime”, 1958-1974:“National Front and Guerrillas”, 1974-1994: “Drug trafficking, guerilla expansion and paramilitarism” and 2005-present: “Demobilization, reconfigurations of war and peace processes”.53 Visitors can explore the timeline by clicking on any of the horizontal or vertical divisions, scroll through the sources and use information filters to narrow their search. The timeline resembles a database more than an analytical tool. That is, the setting avoids providing an interpretation of the sources presented in each of the historical periods, giving visitors the option to come to their own conclusions (See Appendix X). Until now all of the settings explored within this function have provided a concrete historical or geographical account of the conflict. Tables (no.11) takes this written or numerical information and transforms it into visual metaphors that convey the effects of these phenomenon on different sections of Colombia's population, political culture & environmental sphere.54 Through the use of audiovisual representations and objects, some tables attempt to capture the feelings provoked by a situation, such as the table dealing with forced displacement referenced at the beginning of this chapter. In other cases, the

53 It is interesting to note that the MHM uses different time periods to divide the conflict than the GMH (or CNMH) which divides the historical trajectory of the conflict in four periods: From bipartisan violence to subversive violence (1958-1982), guerrilla expansion, consolidation of paramilitary groups and drugs trade (1982-1996), Escalation of the armed conflict (1996-2005) and Peace Negotiations and mutation of violence (2005-2012). This fact indicates the ongoing debate on how to frame and periodate the armed conflict (GMH, 2013). 54 The names of all the sixteen tables are: 1. Indígenas (Indigenous Communities), 2. Afrodescendientes (Afrodescendents), 3. Campesinos (Farmers), 4. Académicos y periodistas (Intellectuals and Journalists), 5. Líderes Sociales y sindicalistas (Social Leaders and Syndicalists, 6. Defensores de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights advocates), 7. La vida en medio de la guerra-edades (Life in between war- ages), 8. Población LGBTI (LGTBI population), 9. Mujeres (Women), 10. Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces), 11. Violencia contra la tierra (Violence against the land), 12. Desplazamiento Forzado (Forced Displacement), 13. Exilio (Exile), 14. Oposición y pluralismo político (Opposition and political pluralism), 15. Voto (Vote), 16. Verdad, Justicia y Reparación (Truth, Justice and Reparation).

setting evokes the meanings social groups may give to a specific situation, such as how indigenous communities translate into their local language the forms of violence they have been subjected to. In the remaining tables, violence appears as a disruptive element forcefully integrated into the daily life of its citizens but which comes at a high price, frustrating lives, contaminating rivers, drying crops, eliminating role models and destroying political projects. Through a Human Rights approach, Tables gives a multiscale visualization of the armed conflict in Colombia and underlines accountability and rights protection as the path to restore citizen coexistence and social justice (See Appendix Y). The last two settings, Multiple Faces of Violence (no.12) and the Gaze of Art (no. 14), display illustrations both as poetic representations and as documentary sources of an event. These experiences implement the same methodology used by Chronologies (no.8) and organize a wide range of documentary sources in interactive screens through which visitors can navigate and choose the work of the artists and the photojournalists they want to see. However, Setting no.12 employs an additional element. A series of rectangular forms, which from afar resemble old television screens, have been fixed to metal poles that rotate so at any point visitors are able to see multiple version of the same historical event. In this way, visitors interact sensorially with the documents and, at the same time, glimpse how the subjective position of the photographer affects the portrayal of historical events. Within the exhibit, the clarificatory function privileges a panoramic outlook on the conflict so that people who are unaware of it, or are not part of the academic sector, can identify its constitutive elements. However, MHM also carries out specialized research which is periodically displayed in their temporary exhibitions. Due to their short duration and limited scope, temporary exhibits enable the curatorial staff to carry out an in-depth analysis of different topics. Within exhibitions such as Colombia. Paraíso despojado (Colombia. Stripped Paradise. 2015-6) or Paz ¡Creer para ver! (Peace. Believe to See!. 2015), the MHM follows a regular research procedure: it selects an issue, identifies its underlying principles, tracks its development and selects a series of sample cases to support its claim. Paraíso Despojado focuses on the problems of land ownership, distribution, and exploitation to show how these processes have led to the displacement of six million people, basing its historical analysis on six exemplary cases. By contrast, or Paz ¡Creer para ver!, presents a historical overview of the different peace negotiations in Colombia, establishing points of comparison or convergence between these and the recent peace agreements with the FARC. In both cases, visual and didactic tools are used to give visitors the conceptual tools

needed to understand an issue and stressing the importance of applying that knowledge to exercise their rights.55 The MHM introduces the clarification function in the courses given to students, teachers and mediators. Each year, approximately a hundred high-school students and adults from the comunas 8,9 and 13 attend academic programs such as Young Memory, Schools with memory and Mediator Schools, lasting between three and nine months. Each of these programs devotes its first three sessions to contextual analysis. In these sessions, the MHM explains the causes and effects of the armed conflict, the motivations of the different actors involved in it, the state’s Duty of Memory and the laws concerning victims as legal subjects (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015). They also explain key concepts such as Memory, Human Rights, Reparations, and Guarantees of non-repetition, describing how these concepts have been integrated into MHM's museological content. As with the permanent display, high-school students and mediators are acquainted with the artistic productions that give a personal dimension to the conflict. Mediators attend a series of lectures given by artists at the Modern Art Museum of Medellín (MAMM) and students attend workshops held at the annual Book Fair. Young Memory also includes a day excursion to Granada's Salon del Nunca Más and San Carlos' Jardín de la memoria as part of the curriculum, enabling students to do field work and have access to first hand historical accounts through personal communication with survivors and Human Rights advocates (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b). The MHM also offering a diplomado (short university-level course) on Historical Memory intended for victims’ organizations, Human Rights advocates or research students from the Antioquia University. Organized into eight modules, the goal of the diplomado is to comply with the Victims' Law by granting access to academic knowledge that strengthens communitarian peacebuilding or commemoration activities. The content provided resembles the Young Memory program, but has a stronger theoretical approach and all participants are obliged to present a final project (written or audiovisual) to receive their certificates. Finally, the MHM also periodically offers research projects that any professional within the Humanities, Arts or Psychology fields can apply for. All research projects require

55 Both of these exhibitions are available online in Spanish. Museo Casa de la Memoria (2015). Colombia. Stripped Paradise. Available online at: http://museocasadelamemoria.gov.co/en/Exposiciones/colombia- paraiso-despojado/ Museo Casa de la Memoria (2015). Peace ¡Believe to See! (2015). Available online at: http://museocasadelamemoria.gov.co/en/Exposiciones/paz-creer-para-ver/

field work and should include members from the comunas in their process. Public conferences are usually organized to communicate the results, which can take the form of publications, artistic installations, educational programs or intervention strategies(Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b). The documentation center, CRAM, is the cornerstone of the clarification function and provides access to an extensive collection of documents for staff and visitors alike. CRAM comprises a library and an archive that stores documents which used to belong to the permanent justice unit of the municipality (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015b, p. 95). Additionally, it accommodates two major collections donated by Corporación Región and IPC, organizations in Medellín whose work centers on peacebuilding, Human Rights and democracy. CRAM occasionally invites leaders from communitarian and popular libraries to educational workshops where they are acquainted with the bibliographic materials of the Centre and promote conferences about Historical Memory (Fundación Red de Bibliotecas públicas de Medellín, April 21, 2105). In 2015 CRAM was also in charge of administering the institutional radio station called DeMemoria, a broadcasting enterprise which shares the stories and experiences of relatives, survivors, Human Rights organizations and intellectuals in their search for conflict resolution (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015a).

Restoration

This function attempts to fulfill two of the five conditions for reparation established by the Victims’ Law: the regeneration of the bonds of trust and the re-establishment of the social fabric.56 Restoration combines community outreach, educational strategies, and psychosocial interventions in order to rebuild the social bonds shattered by conflict and create non-destructive ways of resolving disagreements. The MHM considers that continued exposure to violent events has legitimized hostile practices towards the environment and the community. Employing the research the Victims’ Unit and other grassroots organizations in Medellín have carried out to create an exit route from the conflict, the MHM combines reflective artistic practices, academic training, and psychosocial workshops, in an attempt to heal the scars and emotional damage caused by the conflict. However, restoration focuses not only on healing victims or social groups but also on how these experiences are a result of structural inequalities that can be changed if

56 The five conditions of reparation established by the Victims’ Law were previously mentioned on page 79.

these communities are empowered through non-violent forms of resistance and civic engagement (Marlowe & Adamson, 2011; Tinning, 2018). Through this function the MHM narrates the experience of violence and suffering to constitute a new affective citizenship based on the values of solidarity and political action (Hein, 2013; Zembylas & Bekerman, 2008). In the permanent exhibition, restoration assumes the form of sociolinguistic, musical and pictorial reflections that reveal how the experience of violence has given way to a “conflictive ethos […] that includes particular perceptions, emotions, beliefs and attitudes” (Zembylas, 2007, p. 208). Gradually, the logic of war has negatively charged everyday language and the way in which Colombians define specific concepts. Through the eyes of children and video artists, the MHM attempts to dismantle its linguistic foundations. The goal of the written and visual sources is to provoke unsettlement in the visitors, leading them to question socially accepted patterns of thought and harmful behaviors. Subsequently, the MHM demonstrates the possibility of other definitions stressing solidarity and coexistence. On the one hand, Words of Children: Disarming meaning (no.6) presents an alphabetically ordered list with more than fifty definitions children have given to terms directly related to the conflict such as death, guerrilla, military and violence but also of those affected by it (family, house, land) and the emotions it arouses (hate, envy, fear). These descriptions, taken from Javier Naranjo's Casa de Estrellas (House of Stars) (1996), were compiled throughout his work as a teacher in the rural schools of Antioquia. They expose children's ability to capture Colombia's reality, laying bare the weight of war in their day-today experiences and thoughts (BBC Mundo, 2013). Orlando Vásquez (6 years old), for example, defines fear as “when my mom drives a car and some men that cannot eat, break the window, kill my mom, kill my dad and then I live alone.” Likewise, Gloria María Hidalgo (10 years), reveals her pain when she ascertains that mystery is “when my mom was gone, and she never told me where she went”. Observing the Colombian reality through the thoughts and words of children allows visitors to recognize the alternatives they may offer to the conflict. In this case, Pablo José Jaramillo (6 years old) emphasizes that happiness is only possible when “love, peace, and all good things are together” and Juan Camilo Hurtado (8 years old) points out that peace should be conceived through forgiveness. The experience Words: Keys to think the war (no.9), follows the same logic but turns to video art as a communication tool. This setting analyzes five concepts the curatorial team believes are key to describing and resignifying

the conflict. These concepts are fear, difference, solidarity, resilience, and memory. The videos begin by explaining how war has given these concepts erroneous interpretations, and then redefines their meaning. For instance, difference is represented as the distance that separates a cube and a cone, depicting the extremes, which are then assembled to form a house, showing how difference, in words of the MHM, can instead "shape wonderful things” (See Appendix Z). By contrast, settings no. 13 and 16 display how communities have resisted the ethos of conflict through various forms of social activism that prevent crimes from being silenced or forgotten. Resounding Memories (no.13) presents music as a form of counter-cultural expression through which different social groups voice their dissatisfaction with the prevailing order. Instead of associating the youth of Medellín with the image of the hired assassin or the gang member, this experience is a tribute to the teens that have decided to respond to violence with art (Giraldo, Gómez, Cadavid, & Medellín, 2011; Riano-Alcala, 2006). Memoria Sonora explores how musical genres such as hip-hop, punk, and metal have become tools for translating anger into a form of nonviolent protest that empowers marginalized communities and opens up windows of opportunities instead of coffins. The setting highlights the work of social and artistic movements such as La Élite, an association which gathered sixty rap groups from comuna 13 in an attempt to denounce and curtail the increasing militarization of the area (El País, June 30, 2016). Since 2003, La Élite has established a hip-hop, breakdance and graffiti festival named Revolución sin Muertos (Revolution Without the Dead) that takes place in the annual commemoration of Operación Orión and which has become a widely attended event, reaching 30,000 people in 2010. Additionally, La Élite has created a school called Kasa Kolacho which gives hip-hop, graffiti, and street dance lessons to children and teenagers from the comuna 13, honoring the memory of a leader from La Élite who was assassinated in 2009 (El Universal, June 26, 2016). Despite continuous threats, this association, as well as other bands presented in Setting no.13 such as Semillas del Futuro, Desadaptadoz and Frankie ha Muerto, have given youth the possibility of dreaming of different futures.57 “The [criminal] bands have their own proposals. They tell them that because they have been born poor they have to become machines of production or war”, states the rapper Jeihhco, “We tell them there are other possibilities” (El Diario, 2017)

57 In collaboration with the MHM, some of the bands presented at this setting, such as Semillas del Futuro, Desadaptadoz, Frankie ha Muerto, organized a concert in 2014 within the comunas under the name"Neighborhood Memories" (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2015)

Once visitors leave the Chamber of Memories (no.15), they enter a blue, white and orange corridor which is the last experience of the exhibition. Labeled as Resistances, this setting combines graffiti and muralism, two artistic expressions heavily invested with political meaning, to illustrate a street protest. Within this demonstration, visitors can distinguish the portrait of Colombian Human Rights and political activists, both alive and dead, who have used civil disobedience as a strategy to oppose violence. Victims also form part of the crowd, no longer as ghostly presences or family figures but as political actors united in their quest for justice, truth, and peace. Above their heads, a protest slogan asserts: “No war will kill us, and no peace will oppress us.” Other, smaller, quotes from community leaders, artists and intellectuals decorate the mural, inviting visitors to reflect on the role they play in their society as subjects of rights. The graffiti both reaffirms the value of art as a political tool and ends the display by urging visitors to take a stand against the acts of violence they have witnessed. The aim is to depict collective suffering as a driving force for change, an experience that opposes a violent status quo and strives to construct a different type of society (Appendix AA). In order to promote non-violent forms of resistance that can lead to effective changes within the structures of power, the MHM has created two additional departments within the museum, called the 'social’ and ‘cultural' areas. On the one hand, the social office is in charge of supporting peacebuilding initiatives in Medellín and Antioquia by offering training courses for victims’ organizations, communitarian leaders, and university students. These lectures provide information about TJS and Historical Memory Framework as well the Victims and Land Restitution Laws so that students can appeal to justice and strengthen their local memory initiatives. It also sponsors public meetings in which different Human Rights and victims’ organizations share their experiences and, together, devise new educational strategies to counteract violence (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2014, 73). On the other hand, the cultural area is in charge of designing artistic and academic programs to strengthen collective initiatives that turn stories of pain into narratives of resistance. With the financial help of the museum, these creative exchanges involve social scientists, artists and members of comunas 1,3,5,6,7,8 and 13, who organize concerts, radio programs, video projects, art therapy sessions or research groups in their communities. The activities give each district social ownership over their artistic products and, at the same time, help them reflect on the ways in which each can contribute towards reconstructing the damaged social bonds. Restoration then becomes an act of social justice through which the MHM

attempts to provide communities with sufficient conceptual and practical tools to change the conditions which gave rise to violence in the first place (Nkoane, 2012). The MHM has given museums a more prominent role within Colombian society. Following the example of this memorial museum, other institutions and cultural centers are starting to reflect on the importance of engaging in activist practices through the use of cultural activities (Carter, 2013). One example of this on a regional level is the MAMM which has grown closer to the MHM and currently gives lessons to the participating citizens of the School of Mediators (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2014). The National Museum of Colombia decided to arrange a second edition of the 1999 Symposium on Museums, Memory, and Nation in 2016, in response to the increasing interest of many museums and cultural institutions in contributing to Colombia's reconciliation process and democratic practices. The goal of the symposium was to examine, update and propose new methods of research, preservation, and communication of heritage responding to the work of recent memory initiatives like the MHM (Museo Nacional de Colombia., 2016). Furthermore, thanks to the help of the Argentinian TyPA Cultural Foundation, USAID and Explora Park, the MHM has expanded its network beyond national borders to communicate the state's contribution to Duty of Memory on an international scale, working as a platform in the 2017's Museo Reimaginado (Reimagined Museum) Symposium. Within the conference, the MHM shared its experience of how community empowerment and new technologies can play a role in transforming the way individuals interact in the public sphere. Most importantly, the MHM has given communitarian initiatives for memory an institutional backing. Usually subject to financial and economic pressures, facing threats from one armed group or another and unable to conduct long-lasting collaborations, victims and survivors, artists, intellectuals, and Human Rights groups found their activities and timelines restricted continuously. However, the acknowledgment of victims as legal subjects and the consolidation of the MHM as part of the state's commitment to truth and reparation, has led to a rapid consolidation of these projects on a local, regional and national scale (See Appendix AB). The voices of those who had been excluded and marginalized from the main cities as well as the mainstream cultural and political centers have burst forcefully into the public sphere. Between 2005 and 2015, fifteen new memory landmarks such as houses, chapels, museums, ossuaries, and even forests have been inaugurated. Like the MHM, some of these are located in the cities’ downtown areas, but they have also been established in neighborhoods, rural towns, and former trauma sites. This number does not account for other memory initiatives that have appeared in the country such as

documentation, research or psychosocial intervention centers, guided tours and exhibitions, which now number around thirty. As a result of RESLAC's IX regional meeting in Bogotá (2015), the Network of Colombian Sites of Memory (RCLM) was born. Grouping twenty-eight sites, including the MHM, the goal of the RCLM is to "Assemble, protect and make visible Colombia's territories of memory as the basis for a long lasting peace and democratic participation that respects the dignity, diversity and the individual and collective rights of citizens"(Red de Sitios de Memoria Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, 2017). The network runs a blog and regularly publishes Human Rights violation reports assembled by members of the organization that support the Truth Commission's accountability process (Red Colombiana de Lugares de Memoria, n.d.). RCLM also arranges annual meetings in different Sites of Memory around the country so that its members can familiarize themselves with the plurality of memory initiatives within the nation. Currently, the RCLM, in association with other victims’ and Human Rights groups, is working to persuade the state to validate the Mercosur IPPDH guidelines (2012) to ensure the autonomy, financial sustainability, and participation of Sites of Memory for the future (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, 2016; Corporación Podión, n.d.).

Conclusion

In only a decade, the framework of Duty of Memory has transformed the physical, political and museological landscapes of Argentina and Colombia. Tiles, sculptures, parks, trails, spaces of human Rights and memorial museums have appeared in the cities and villages of these countries to remind their inhabitants of the debt they owe to their predecessors. This framework has raised awareness within society of the importance of acquiring an ethical commitment towards the past, not only for the sake of expressing loss but because of the political changes this loss can provoke within the public sphere (Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional, 2009). Both the SMHR and the MHM expose the cracks and the falsehoods of national unity, doing so precisely because they believe that “the act of coming together in what separates us” can foster new forms of social interaction (Simon, 2006, p. 188). The right to truth and reparation is leading to the validation of communities who had been silenced and marginalized, opening-up existing social relations to critique and reevaluating the role of democratic participation as well as the states' behavior (Carter & Orange, 2012). It is therefore not surprising that the Argentinian government has decided that by 2019 the Ministry of Justice will have its permanent location in the SMHR precinct, or that ex-members of the FARC have chosen the Bicentennial park to present their new political party, the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (Entorno Inteligente, 2017; La Nación, 2017). These acts are demonstrations of both the political shifts these institutions are provoking and the status they have acquired as platforms of Human Rights and of justice, political dissent and freedom of expression. The foregoing does not imply that the inclusion of Duty of Memory within SMHR's and MHM's institutional mission has eliminated alternative accounts of history. Moreover, it does not assume that all individuals agree, within and outside of the institution, with its ethical imperative towards the past. The inclusion of acts of remembrance as part of TJS does not neutralize the malleable and changing nature of the meaning-making process of memories. Duty of Memory is a political exercise, and, like any other act of remembrance, it is vulnerable to appropriations and manipulations even when it ponders on the falsehoods of national unity (Marín, 2011; Nora & Kritzman, 1996). This is precisely what Huyssen (2000) warned when he referred to the 'risky enterprise' of establishing memory practices with

evident political foci because justice would inevitably become ''entangled in the unreliability of memory"(28). Despite this, both institutions defend their ethical engagement with the pasts of their countries. They underline that any hermeneutic practice of historical events, even the one carried out by historians, is influenced by the context, carries with it a political statement and is subject to change (Feldman & Cañaveral, n.d.; Museo de la memoria Rosario, n.d.). Their political position is just much more outspoken than other cultural institutions because their work is directly concerned with attributing meaning to mass-scale abuses. This fact, inevitably involves holding social groups responsible and exposing social gaps. SMHR’s and MHM approach to Duty of Memory does not mean that they regard their work as a contentious terrain. In fact, their work continually takes place amidst the competing versions of the past, that either internal or external actors express. In Argentina's case, this view of Duty of Memory as 'terrain in dispute' is made more evident due to two factors. First, thirty-five years have passed since the end of the dictatorship. The temporal distance with this period has not only transformed the struggle of Human Rights groups into a state policy but has also led to the emergence of dissenting viewpoints towards by the consolidation of organizations such as AFFyAPPA and MC. Second, the presence of various state and civil society actors in the administration of the SMHR has made visible the diverging or even conflicting, viewpoints that exist even between the Human Rights groups, who are continually negotiating the role Duty of Memory should play within the practices of the SMHR. In Colombia's case, this dispute may seem more covert since the MHM maintains a stronger bond with governmental organizations, such as the municipality. The role Human Rights organizations should play in the administration of the museum is in development, and their programming and exhibition strategies are in the early stages of implementation. Additionally, there is no temporal distance with the conflict because the MHM has been created within the paradoxical context of transitional justice and ongoing war. The continuous presence of armed actors, not only affects the content the museum can present to the public but also makes it harder for internal and external dissenting viewpoints towards the framework of Duty of Memory to be expressed. Only in 2017, and along with the implementation of the Peace Agreements with the FARC, more than a hundred communitarian leaders in Colombia have been killed (El Espectador, 2017). These systematic attacks are carried out towards communitarian leader precisely because they are figures who are actively involved in the “search for truth, memory and land restitution, claim their

right to political participation or denounce illegal economies” (El País, 2017).58 For now, the museum's exhibition displays a multiplicity of sources and testimonies (e.g., Life Stories) as a way to show that Duty of Memory does not mean that all viewpoints towards the past will be uniform. Most probably along with the implementation of the TJS, reduction of violence, and a more direct involvement of Human Rights groups within MHM's administration, competing interpretations over the historical past will be voiced out more explicitly inside and outside of the institution. Furthermore, That the SMHR and the MHM both respond to the social struggles of the present based on community collaboration and Human Rights advocacy does not mean that they define Duty of Memory on the same terms. Their difference stems from the historical contexts that led to mass-scale abuses and their societies' approach to justice. Argentina is closer to a Retributive Justice model in which individual criminal accountability for the past is prioritized of over other forms of symbolic reparation. Colombia frames its past and present through Restorative Justice, defining violations as collective wrongdoings and seeking to address the damage by transforming the relationship between citizens and highlighting social coexistence. The difference between the two outlooks on Duty of Memory is evident in the different functions the two museological institutions assume. The SMHR transforms Buenos Aire's most infamous SDC into a site to pay homage to the ESMA's disappeared, avoiding any visual or narrative representation that would present them as deceased. It also avoids keeping the space tied to its horrific past to counteract the military's narrative of having successfully eliminated insurgents. Rather, the SMHR breathes life into the SDC by promoting activities that highlight the life’s work of individuals who spoke against the dictatorial regime (such as Rodolfo Walsh), capturing the disappeared as representatives of a specific political project that fought against injustice. The goal of homage is to transform the detainees into role models for the younger generations to follow and, in this way, validate resistance as a form of civic engagement with the present-day inequalities of Argentina. Through artistic partnerships and educational projects, the institution communicates the political ideals of the disappeared, thus maintaining the struggle against impunity active in the public sphere and ensuring its continuity. Last but not least, the SMHR uses its indexical relation to the dictatorial past as a tool to advocate for reparation through prosecution. By transforming the Casino into a museum, the

58 Translated from Spanish by the author: “existe una “sistematicidad” de estos ataques, porque las víctimas coinciden con el perfil de representantes locales “que buscan la verdad, la memoria o la restitución de tierras, quieren participar en política o que denuncian economías ilegales” (El País, 2017).

organization exposes an undeniable record of evidence which establishes a clear boundary between the victim and the perpetrator, disavowing alternative interpretations of the dictatorial past. The buildings that formed part of the SDC are singled out by the Public Entity and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that no traces of crime that might function as evidence in the Megacausa will be lost. Instead of offering the comfort of empathy to the visitors, the SMHR underlines "the other's pain as something unfathomable, as an outrage which should not be repeated" (Arnold-de Simine, 2013, p. 113). The MHM, by contrast, is part of a bigger urban intervention and landscaping project which has worked since 2004 to recover public space from criminal gangs and revitalize Medellín's cultural and educational opportunities. The institution shifts focus away from the image of the criminal act, turning its attention towards the victims' pain and the harm they have suffered as a way of recognizing the personal losses of the conflict. Establishing itself as a "house" where citizens can meet and commemorate their loved ones through public acts of mourning (eg. plaques and the Chamber of Memory), the museum gives space to narratives of pain that had been denied due to the continuous displacement or silencing of individuals. Within activities and displays, empathy becomes a resource to resolve conflict, increase community cohesion and dissolve pain (Arnold-de Simine, 2013). The goal of sharing testimonies is to familiarize those who had not lived through the violence, with the faces behind statistics, acknowledging the victims as legal subjects with the right to know the truth. While the MHM does not account for each case presented at the exhibition, it does attempt to clarify the structural dynamics of the conflict. The museum points out to the different forms of violence and armed actors responsible for committing mass-scale abuses and the appalling effects they have had on the daily life of citizens, minority groups, the environment, and the political system. Violence is understood as a multiscale phenomenon with no straightforward solution in which reparation includes not only prosecution but the reestablishment of the bonds of trust between citizens. Through restoration, the MHM seeks to invalidate the hostile practices that have become an accepted form of conflict resolution and supports peacebuilding initiatives that portray victims and marginalized communities as political agents. Survivors and relatives who resist fear, threat, and death by strengthening local forms of government, Human Rights advocacy and artistic research, become spokespersons of alternative proposals that demonstrate the possibility of resolving differences without violence (Semana, 2015) However, both distinct approaches share four common weak points. First of all, answering to the "what made this possible?" is still a difficult issue. Although MHM's

permanent exhibit does provide a wide-range of documentary sources so visitors can get to know more about the armed conflict, it avoids giving them explicit interpretation. The political, social and economic circumstances are not connected in such a way that visitors can reach an understanding of the causes of the conflict. The exhibition is mostly limited to presenting its effects and how individuals and communities have responded to it. In this case, a plurality of sources and outlooks can become a double-edged sword leaving many questions unanswered. In SMHR's case, this question is not even formulated. The space’s over-emphasis on homage and reparation has led to weaknesses in the historical and sociological analyses that might expose the gray areas of history and implicate the convoluted political history of Argentina in the emergence of the dictatorial regime(s) of the 20th century. Many fear that, even when necessary, the SMHR and other former SDC’s may not be the best space to showcase this type of academic reflection since it runs the risk of trivialising the suffering of the ex-detainees, relatives and disappeared (La Retaguardia, 2014). Critical analysis should not necessitate the putting aside or forgetting of the crimes, but instead, aim to show that the dictatorial regime was not something alien imposed on the Argentinians, but rather a product of its society. Examining its causes, which the SMHR up to this point has failed to do, may help address the latest regime as a collective wrongdoing. Secondly, the perpetrators' outlook on events is mostly absent. Both institutions claim that the perpetrators are made present through their acts, but since the institutional mission is focused on victims', relatives and survivors' accounts, the motivations driving militaries or armed groups in their actions, are not present. This criticism should not be taken as recommending the inclusion of this motive for the sake of a superficial idea of balance. Instead, following Vezetti’s and CELS argument, the perpetrators’ outlook can be included as a tactic to reveal the flaws of the system and speak directly to those who were, or continue to be in positions of power, to make them critically reflect on their historical responsibilities. In this respect, the MHM has gone further. The museum has attempted to share the accounts of demobilized members in its temporary exhibitions and has facilitated dialogues between victims, survivors, relatives and armed actors through conferences or activities, yet it is still to include their accounts in the permanent exhibit (Museo Casa de la Memoria, n.d.-a) Thirdly, focusing solely on victims, survivors and marginalized communities may lead to the dismissal of other sectors of society whose viewpoints are essential to ensure that the institutional narrative effectively represents a plurality of historical viewpoints. These institutions should seek ways to invite and communicate with those who are not interested

in or acquainted with their stories, or are even reluctant to hear them, engaging in conversations that open-up new social debates and, at the same time, enrich their community outreach strategies. Since SMHR’s and MHM’s commitment to Duty of Memory is to ensure the non-repetition of historical injustices, as its ‘Justice, Memory and Truth’ paradigm asserts, then their concern should appeal to larger publics than those directly affected by violence or interested in their subject matter. It would be misleading to fully transpose each of these two museological models to other transitional contexts that respond to authoritarian regimes or armed conflict because the structural organization of these places is heavily influenced by the local sociopolitical dynamics, and what works within these two countries may be ineffective or even detrimental in other contexts. After all, these institutions should not become “pre-designed” organizations commanding a standard form of intervention assuming a one-size-fits-all approach to totalitarianism or warfare. Some post-dictatorial scenarios may benefit more from a Restorative approach to Duty of Memory, stressing the need for former oppressors and oppressed to come together and critically evaluate their responsibilities to avoid the recurrence of violence. Similarly, individual post-conflict societies may frame their work through Retributive justice, focusing on achieving accountability for the violations before working towards re-establishing social coexistence. In this sense, museum staff should carefully evaluate the messages their exhibitionary and educational practices intend to transmit, avoiding interpretations that can increase polarization or persecution. For example, in Argentina's case, H.I.J.O.S has legitimized the use of escrache in the SMHR as a practice to shame those who have not been prosecuted publicly. However, in Colombia, escraches may have a counterproductive effect, blocking the reintegration of former combatants into society or equating themselves to an act of menace analogous to ones carried out by armed groups, thereby increasing fear in a community and putting lives at risk. Despite this, it can be seen that MHM's emphasis on recovering spaces that were previously marked as dangerous, and fostering encounters between victims, citizens and perpetrators can be effective in contexts in which distrust for both civil society and official institutions is widespread, enabling the creation of safe environments that serve as platforms for mediation. Making citizens feel they can inhabit and interact within public space is a crucial step in ensuring that societies can open channels of communication. Without the fear of punishment, individuals can begin to regard themselves, not as opponents or potential executioners, but as individuals whose dissenting modes of life and opinion can coexist. Even when the task is difficult, the key lies in providing places where

commonality can be build through identification with the other(Zembylas, 2009). In this case, the museum can become a forum to provide a space in which different and contradictory viewpoints can be presented. The extent of past injustices must be acknowledged through exposure to loss and emphasis of the need to overcome retribution so individuals, in the future, will not be fixed into dichotomous identities of ‘oppressor’ and ‘victim’. The SMHR can serve as a good example for contexts in which state or other forms of repressive violence have spread throughout the landscape and in which communities are struggling to find the role trauma sites can have in their present. By retaking former trauma sites and including them in the political and social sphere, communities can consciously reject the social projects which previous governments and armed actors have tried to establish. Instead of seeing remembrance as an act of mourning, trauma sites can become vibrant cultural centers for state entities, Human Rights groups, educational institutes and intellectual and art collectives to meet and promote civic engagement. Moreover, the SMHR demonstrates that empathetic feeling is not the only method to stimulate citizens to actively engage with history. The idea is not to provoke an "empty empathy" in which citizens can feel comfort in the idea that the past has been left behind or that nothing remains to be done to redress the damage. The SMHR emphasizes feelings of alienation and disturbance that offer "the possibility for a deepened sense of responsibility for the other" (Arnold-de Simine, 2013; Tinning, 2018). In this way, museological institutions encourage citizens to be accountable for the welfare of others and to stand against future violations. Both the SMHR and the MHM show the importance of moving away from the centrality of the artifact when narrating stories of pain (Fleming, 2012). Aware of the fact that the themes and spaces they display may cause either fatigue or shock in the visitors, they avoid recreating scenes or showcasing photographs or weapons of torture that might arouse adverse reactions. If they do show material proofs, as SMHR does, these objects presented as legal evidence for a detainee's testimony, not as leading elements. The goal of these spaces is not to make visitors focus on the traumatic past, blocking any meaning- making process that might extract lessons from the atrocious events (Kansteiner & Weilnbock, 2008). Instead, the exhibitions, activities, and testimonies underline that despite it all, these subjects have been able to transform their loss into a driving force, proposing peaceful modes of social coexistence and becoming prominent political figures in their communities. This form of representation may be an essential lesson for other memorial

spaces to follow, whatever the subject they treat, since it empowers individuals by regarding them not merely as victims, but as agents in the construction of a different society. All in all, the examples of these two demonstrate how essential it is to expand the network of professionals that are part of museums working amidst transitional contexts, since reparation and reconciliation are a theme not only of representation, but of ongoing debate (Fleming, 2012). Including social workers, anthropologists, and psychologists who can advise the staff is a crucial strategy these spaces can employ in order to maintain themselves in tune with the communities’ needs and demands, as well as to determine the approach they should assume towards sensitive topics. Especially as these institutions strive to influence their political and social contexts in a more direct way than other museums, they should strive to be versatile. The contents of Duty of Memory change with necessities and demands of civil society in a specific period of transition. Most probably, both the restorative focus of Colombia and the need for prosecution in Argentina, will fade away with time, and these institutions, in order to avoid becoming a mere symbolic act of compensation, will need to adjust accordingly to revitalise the role they play in their societies.

References

IMAGES

Appendix A: Buenos Aires Ciudad. (n.d.). Porcentaje de población bajo la línea de pobreza (LP) según Comuna. Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Año 2006. Adapted from https://www.estadisticaciudad.gob.ar/eyc/?p=53627

Appendix B: Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos. (2014a). Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos: Línea de Tiempo. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/espacio_memoria/docs/linea_de_tiempo Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos. (n.d.-c). Mapa del Espacio. Retrieved from http://www.espaciomemoria.ar/mapa.php

Appendix C: MedellínColombia.co. (n.d.). Population of Medellin. Adapted from http://www.medellincolombia.co/general-information/population-of-medellin/

Appendix D: Archdaily Colombia. (2010). Proyecto Parque Bicentenario “Casa Memoria.” Retrieved from https://www.archdaily.co/co/02-55431/proyecto-parque-bicentenario-casa-memoria

Appendix E: Bitácora urbanismo y derecho. (2014). ÁRBOL DE LA VIDA EN LA CASA MUSEO DE LA MEMORIA DE MEDELLÍN. Retrieved from https://bitacoraurbanismoyderecho.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/arbol-de-la-vida-en-la-casa- museo-de-la-memoria-de-medellin/ Esculturas de Colombia. (n.d.). Esculturas de Colombia: Parque Bicentenario. Retrieved from http://esculturasdecolombia.blogspot.nl/2014/01/parque-tercer-milenio.html

Appendix F: Esculturas de Colombia. (n.d.). Esculturas de Colombia: Parque Bicentenario. Retrieved from http://esculturasdecolombia.blogspot.nl/2014/01/parque-tercer-milenio.html

Appendix G:

VALF. (2013). El Siluetazo desde la mirada de Eduardo Gil. Retrieved from http://www.antimuseo.org/textos/VALF/archiv/nov13/siluetazo.html

Appendix H: Argentina.gob.ar. (n.d.). Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA. Ex Centro Clandestino de Detención, Tortura y Exterminio. Retrieved from https://www.argentina.gob.ar/derechoshumanos/museo-sitio-de-memoria-esma Argentina para mirar. (2014). ESPACIO PARA LA MEMORIA Y LA PROMOCIÓN Y DEFENSA DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS -EX-ESMA-, EN NUÑEZ, CIUDAD DE BUENOS AIRES. Retrieved from http://www.argentinaparamirar.com.ar/notas/ver/357/espacio_para_la_memoria_y_la_promo cion_y_defensa_de_los_derechos_humanos_-ex-esma-_en_nunez_ciudad_de_buenos_aires

Appendix I: Transeuntes.nt. (2015). Aparecidos: el arte de la memoria. Retrieved from http://www.transeuntes.net/2015/03/26/aparecidos-el-arte-de-la-memoria BA Street Art. (2012). Interventions at ex ESMA in Buenos Aires. Retrieved from http://buenosairesstreetart.com/2012/10/interventions-at-ex-esma-in-buenos-aires/ Villalba Storti, P. (2012). Entre Ruinas , Lugares Y Objetos Residuales De La Memoria en la ciudad de Medellín. Bifurcaciones: Revista de Estudios Culturales Urbanos, (11), 1–11. Retrieved from https://aplicacionesbiblioteca.udea.edu.co:2163/servlet/articulo?codigo=5550096

Appendix H: Brodsky, M. (2005). Memoria en construccion:́ El debate sobre la ESMA. (La Marca, Ed.). Buenos Aires, Argentina. Malón de Octubre. (n.d.). Malón. 2017. Retrieved from http://www.malonoctubre.com.ar/022.html

Appendix K: Brodsky, M. (2005). Memoria en construccion:́ El debate sobre la ESMA. (La Marca, Ed.). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Appendix L, M, O, V, X, Y, Z: Photographs taken by the author.

Appendix N: Busnelli Arquitectura. (n.d.). Sitio de Memoria Ex Casino de oficiales y Centro Clandestino de Detención, Tortura y Exterminio ESMA, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved from http://www.barquitectura.com.ar/?p=2083

Appendix P: Gehrke, C. (2017). Análise do projeto de reabilitação do Casino de Oficiales do Centro Clandestino de Detención, Tortura y Extermínio de la Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada–ESMA. Buenos Aires/Argentina. Cadernos Do LEPAARQ (UFPEL), 14(27), 569–584.

Appendix Q: El campesino.co. (2017). Trujillo, Vale, ejemplo de construcción de paz. Retrieved from http://www.elcampesino.co/trujillo-valle-ejemplo-trabajos-memoria-construccion-paz/

Appendix R: Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional. (2009). Recordar en conflicto iniciativas no oficiales de memoria en Colombia. Opciones Gráficas Editores. Retrieved from https://www.ictj.org/es/publication/recordar-en-conflicto-iniciativas-no-oficiales-de- memoria-en-colombia

Appendix S: Museo Casa de la Memoria. (n.d.-b). Manual de Mediadores. Medellín, Colombia.

Appendix T: Bitácora urbanismo y derecho. (2014). ÁRBOL DE LA VIDA EN LA CASA MUSEO DE LA MEMORIA DE MEDELLÍN. Retrieved from https://bitacoraurbanismoyderecho.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/arbol-de-la-vida-en-la-casa- museo-de-la-memoria-de-medellin/

Appendix U: Estrada Larrañeta, D. (2011). Inauguración Casa de la Memoria. Retrieved from http://davidestradacolombia.blogspot.nl/2011/12/inaguracion-museo-casa-de-la- memoria.html %0A%0A

Appendix W: Parque Explora. (n.d.). Producción museológica y museográfica para la sala central. Retrieved from http://www.parqueexplora.org/proyectos/apropiacion-y-gestion-social/museo-casa-de-la- memoria

Appendix AA: Contacto Hoy. (2017). Colombia aborda desde el arte la búsqueda de la verdad del conflicto armado. Retrieved from https://contactohoy.com.mx/colombia-aborda-desde-el-arte-la- busqueda-de-la-verdad-del-conflicto-armado/

Appendix AB: Red Colombiana de Lugares de Memoria. (n.d.). Lugares de Memoria. Retrieved from http://redmemoriacolombia.org/lugares-de-memoria

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Appendices

Appendix A. Map of the City of Buenos Aires including percentage living under poverty line and SMHR location. Adapted from (Buenos Aires Ciudad, n.d.)

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Crime spots:

1. Casino de Oficiales: Main Detention Center. 2. Jefatura de guardia: Navy Barracks 3. Infirmary: Ocassional Detention Center 7 4. Pabellón Coy: Occasional Forced labour center. 5. Auto Service Shops: Used to set-up and N repair the Ford Falcon motor cars that were used in detainment operations. 6 6. Printing press: Forced labour center M 7. Brigde and Sports camp: allegedly used as a 5 place to hide prisoner’s corpses. L O P Human Rights organizations and spaces:

K F A. Cuatro Columnas (Main building) B. National Memory Archive Q C. Casa de Suboficiales II or Argentine Forensic 4 G E Anthropology team (EAAF) J H B D. Casino de Suboficiales or IPPDH Mercosur 3 R E. ‘House of Identity’: Madres Línea Fundadora F. National Human Rights Secretary 1 C B G. ‘30.000 comrades present’- Memoria Abierta- I A Familiares D 2 H. Universal Human Rights Declaration Square I. Rodolfo Walsh Letter J. Ex-Quincho or ‘White Scarfs Salon’ K. Madres Plaza de Mayo L. Patrick Rice Ecumenical Space M. Malvinas Museum N. TV pública – Educ.ar O. H.I.J.O.S P. Abuelas Plaza de Mayo Q. Haroldo Conti Cultural Centre R. Militant memories outdoor exhibit Appendix B. Map of the SMHR including crime spots and Human Right Organization Headquarters. Adapted from (Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, n.d.-c, 2014a).

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Appendix C. Map of the City of Medellín including the sixteen communas and population density. Adapted from (MedellínColombia.co, n.d.).

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Appendix D. Construction Plan for the Bicentenary Park made by Planta Baja Architects. From (Archdaily Colombia, 2010).

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Appendix E. Tree of Life sculpture assembled by the artist Leobardo Pérez Jiménez with the cutting blades collected from the Comunas in the Municipality’s Week of Disarmament. From (Bitácora urbanismo y derecho, 2014; Esculturas de Colombia, n.d.).

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Appendix F. Mahatma Ghandi Sculpture made by the artist Ram Sutaren donated by the Indian Embassy as a gift. The quote translates: “If you are at peace with yourself, at least there is one place at peace in the world”. From (Esculturas de Colombia, n.d.).

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Appendix G. Siluetazo in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 22 1983. From (VALF, 2013).

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Appendix H. (Left to right/Up-down): Photographs of the disappeared in the Cuatro Columnas, Madres de la Plaza Building and Museum Site of Memory ESMA. From (Argentina.gob.ar, n.d.; Argentina para mirar, 2014)

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Appendix I. (Left to right/Up-down): GAC (2013) Presentes installation in the SMHR precinct, Nazza Stencil ‘Juicio y castigo’ mural in the H.I.J.O.S building and Carlson’s (2014) Apparitions exhibit at the Infirmary. From (BA Street Art, 2012; Transeuntes.nt, 2015; Villalba Storti, 2012).

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Appendix J. The Cuatro Columnas Building in 1928 and 2017. From (Brodsky, 2005, p. 49; Malón de Octubre, n.d.).

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‘Preserve to transmit 30.000 comrades present memory’ display photographs Human Rights exhibition (unknown date)

Former permanent

a A exhibition (2012-?)

o Malón de Octubre- Matria

e art exhibition (Oct 14- Nov 4

Architectural 2017) Models Ismo-Resistencias art Exhibition (Nov 4-Dec 15 2017)

Youth and memory workshop (unknown date)

Street art & memory murals (2015 edition)

Objects that seem to not belong to any previous exhibition

Appendix K. Cuatro Columnas base floor blueprint with the objects displayed by December 10, 2017. From (Brodsky, 2005, p. 49)

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Appendix L. The artistic installation of grey and red “marble tiles” displayed at the Cuatro Columnas Building. December 10, 2017.

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Appendix M. Preserve to Transmit Memory cabinets that contain the four objects found in the forensic research. Close- up to the left lateral cabinet that showcases the cigarette buts and the coca-cola cap. December 10, 2017.

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Appendix N. Glass panels displayed in the Basement of the Museum Site of Memory ESMA. Retrieved online from (Busnelli Arquitectura, n.d.).

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Appendix O. Video testimonies presented in Capucha, the third floor of the Museum Site of Memory ESMA. December 10, 2017.

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Appendix P. Passage to the Flights of Death. From: (Gehrke, 2017, p. 580). 125

Appendix Q. Trujillo Park Monument with a view of the Ossuary above and the Route of Memory below. From (El campesino.co, 2017).

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Appendix R. (Left to Right). A view of the photographic display at the Never More Salon in Granada and the Garden of Memory in San Carlos, Antioquia Department. From (Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional, 2009; Noticias Oriente Antioqueño, n.d.).

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Appendix S. MHM’s permanent exhibit divided according to three functions: Memorialization (blue), Clarification (orange) and Restoration (green). From (Museo Casa de la Memoria, n.d.-b, p. 14)

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Appendix T. The nine hundred eighty commemorative plaques displayed on the lateral side of the MHM. The message inscribed in the upper plaque states “My lovely boy, I am still waiting for you”. From (Bitácora urbanismo y derecho, 2014).

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Appendix U. A view of MHM’s commemorative plaques and testimony cylinders in the evening. Photograph taken by the artist David Estrada L. From (Estrada Larrañeta, 2011).

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Appendix V. One of the six life-size screens presented in Experience no. 12: Life Stories. July 27, 2017.

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Appendix W. Experience no.15 or Chamber of Memory. From (Parque Explora, n.d.)

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Appendix X. The Timeline (no.8) displays documentary sources that narrate the onset and evolution of Colombia’s armed conflict on a local, regional and national scale. July 27, 2017.

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Appendix Y. (From left to right) Two of the visual metaphors included within the experience no.11 ,Tables. The first one depicts the life paths of children, adults and elders as a roulette in which violence creeps in hindering their dreams, taking their loved ones and inserting them into the conflict. The second table uses one indigenous language (non-identified) to show how these communities experience of the conflict and translate the conflict. July 27, 2017.

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Appendix Z. Video art representation of the concept of Solidarity presented in Experience no.9. The video states “Alone we are vulnerable. Together we are much stronger” (1996). July 27, 2017.

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Appendix AA. A photograph of the exit corridor or Resistances with Andrea Valderrama, the current director of the House of Memory Museum. From (Contacto Hoy, 2017).

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Appendix AB. Memory Landmarks that have been initiated and inaugurated after the ratification of the Justice and Peace and the Victims Laws in Colombia. Adapted from (Red Colombiana de Lugares de Memoria, n.d.)

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